So…after seeing “Enemy” last week I decided that I needed to explore the back catalog of French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve who is quickly becoming one of my favorite up and coming directors. As I wrote last week, “Incendies” is one of my favorite films ever and “Prisoners” and “Enemy” entertained the shit out of me. I’ve heard interesting things from “Maelstrom” and interestingly enough, it so happened to be near the front of my Netflix queue so I push it to the top and here we are. Honestly, I wasn’t floored with the film like I was floored with his other work but I have my reasons for both sides of the argument. I will also note that this review will be brief as I do not enjoy giving out too many details of the plot, which in the case for the film was all over the fucking place. This wasn’t a bad thing by the way.
So that description above the previous paragraph? Yeah, you can go ahead and forget that. The story is really about the life of Bibi, the daughter of a famous French fashion designer that is going through a bit of a life crisis. The film opens up with her getting an abortion and the fun times just start pouring out after that. Poor Bibi. She just couldn’t catch a break, mostly because she’s kind of an idiot but she’s our protagonist so we’ll give her some slack. Bibi goes on to make a few bad decisions and by the middle of the film, has a great deal of guilt racked up on her shoulders. Did I mention we have a talking fish as our narrator? I didn’t? Silly me. Not only is he a talking fish, but he is many talking fish who are getting cut up as the story progresses. The film had a thing with fish. Water, the color blue, fisherman, TALKING FUCKING FISH…you can see the theme here. It was like Villeneuve watched the Three Colors Triology and a shit load of David Cronenberg and decided to write and film this movie. For good measure, he added a bunch of creepy spoken word tracks from Tom Waits, you know, you jazz it up a bit.
So it seems like I’m bashing the film. I’m not doing that. I am just in a weird mood and the sarcasm is leaking from my fingers. Truth is a ended up liking the film. Sure it had flaws. This is one of the first major features of a young director. Have you ever seen the first films of some famous directors? Some are horrid. Some are funny. Some are like this where you can see the originality oozing from the screen but the final product just isn’t as polished or coherent as you would like. I think this is either because young filmmakers have had an entire lifetime of film ideas to put into their first one that they over do it a little. Take Alfonso Cauron for instance. The man just won Best Director at The Oscars but if you go back to his first film, “Love in the Time of Hysteria”, which I reviewed on this site by the way, you’ll notice a film that is far from the quality of his more acclaimed films. It was a funny film but that’s about all. “Maelstrom” on the other hand was able to deliver some emotional scenes backed with some gorgeous camera work. The story was a bit muddy at points and seemed to skip around leaving unresolved questions but it was an experiment and an entertaining one at that.
Seriously, there’s a talking fish in this movie. He’s got a cool accent. I don’t know what his purpose was but it made me laugh.
Right now, as I’m writing this, there is a little boy running around on the floor above me. I think he is playing baseball and I think he has hit for a cycle. Part of me wants to go up there and knock on the door which will ultimately start a fight with the parents. Part of me just wants to deal with it because I’m going to ruin the fun that kid is having. I’m ultimately choosing to let the kid have his fun. It’s a small action that could have avoided some serious stress in that kids life by seeing his parents argue with a much younger snobby asshole like myself. I mention this little tidbit of information because kids today have it rough. I’m not talking about the kids who are given X-Boxes because they asked for one of the ones whose parents pay for their college tuition that they will ultimately lose because they got drunk every day and failed out of their classes. What I’m talking about are the kid who grow up in broken homes…the kids who have to bear(this word usage seems funny but I looked it up. It’s correct) witness to their parents fighting and splitting up. Parents usually think about the kids, but they usually just think of where to store them like they’re boxes of hats that won’t fit in the closet. “The Past” explores these stresses of living in a stressful home but also explores the stress and guilt of being an adult and deciding to have/leave relationships. It ended up being a fantastic film which is now to be expected from a present day master of drama like Asghar Farhadi.
When I saw “A Separation” two years ago, I immediately ordered the blu ray. I haven’t given it a second viewing yet, but I am meaning to considering how much I loved the tension in that film. “The Past” is a lot of like “A Separation” in terms of theme. Both deal heavily with the relationship/ships of a married couple and the effect it has on the surrounding parties, usually the kids. The area in which the two differ is in the amazing portrayals of the characters by the cast. Both movies, which seem alike, couldn’t be more different when you look at the performances in each film. I’m not saying one film is better than the other but rather saying that both films have unique and unforgettable characters. It’s the driving force of the films besides the dramatic and very bleak subject matter.
First off, I didn’t even recognize Bérénice Bejo until I saw her name at the end. This might have to do with her hair being long instead of short like it was in “The Artist” but it just caught me by surprise. It also took me some time to realize that Tahar Rahim was starring in the role as it has been some time since I saw the crime masterpiece that is “A Prophet”. This just happened to give me a slight edge in being completely surprised and impressed with the acting. Bejo plays Marie, a mother of two who has recently began seeing Samir, quietly played by Rahim. Samir is still married but his wife has been in a coma for eight months. If that wasn’t scandalous enough, Marie’s “es husband” Ahmad, played by Ali Mosaffa, is in town to sign the final divorce papers and Marie has invited him to stay at their home. Doesn’t that just sound like the worst fucking episode of “General Hospital” ever? Honestly, the details of the film pushed me away for a while. It came off a little to soap opera for me but when I saw the reviews and of course who directed it, I couldn’t resist any longer. My roommate even mentioned, after reading the disc sleeve, that he hoped I enjoyed my soap opera for the next two hours. Luckily for me, the film was much more than that.
Dealing with a complex plot, the film took it’s time with letting everything play out. I’m glad they did this otherwise it would have lost many of its viewers. In doing so however, the film dragged. I’ve been a self proclaimed lover of slow burns but there were two instances in the film where I had to pause and stretch my legs. The film though, never let my attention slip. I was certainly embedded in the story that was unfolding. I cared about the characters and the choices they made. It was just a long haul. This is really the only “negative” aspect of the film and honestly it isn’t really a negative.
The film deals heavily with the theme of suffering and guilt. Everybody is going through serious shit in this film. The kids are miserable at times due to the fact that they see stress filled screaming matches and passive aggressive smoking sessions in the same hour. The oldest daughter can’t stand being at home because of teh situation, which only makes her mother angrier, making the situation worse. Ahmad comes into the picture to sign the divorce and becomes sort of middle man between the daughter and mother, mopping up what has been spilled all over the floor. Farhadi uses symbolism outstandingly in the film as there is literally at one point, a can of paint spilled all over the floor which Ahmad steps in to clean up, even though he really has no reason to considering it isn’t his house. Another scene has Ahmad fixing a sink pipe for no reason other than to fix it. I love little direction details like that. It’s the first sign of a well written film. Farhadi also implements a character that is literally never on screen (except for one brief second), which is Samir’s wife who is in a coma. In essence, she is the most important character in the film considering all of the fighting and sadness revolves around her situation. It’s a clever way to construct a story around when we never see the reason why all these fights are happening. We get to see the drama from different points of view, but never from the point of view of the subject. “The Descendants” did a similar thing which is what made the ending of that film so powerful, even though I believe “The Past” has an even better ending.
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Overall the film was a heavy experience on what it is like trying to live in the present when you haven’t cleaned up your past yet. Decisions that are made carry through until they are resolved. In one point in the film Samir tells Marie that “When two people see each other after 4 years and still fight together, it shows that there is something unsolved between them.” It’s a wonderful line that beautifully describes many of the themes that are going on during the duration of the film. The ending of the film just goes to show that even if two people are the furthest away that they can be, their past can be the only thing that brings them back together. It was one of the most touching and poetic endings I’ve seen in a long time. I actually went back and watched it four times because of how beautiful it is. It was a cherry on top of an excellent film by Asghar Farhadi as he continues to sit on his throne as the master of family drama.
Lately I have been thinking of what up underrated directors do I think are going to be the next big thing in film. Obviously guys like Paul Thomas Anderson and Spike Jonze have been receiving recognition for their work due to their originality and dedication to their work They aren’t pumping out films left and right and what we are ultimately left with is engaging cinema that is going to be talked about for years to come. Denis Villeneuve should be added to that list. He is seriously growing into one of my favorite directors working today. This film just etched it into stone that he is the real deal. While I still haven’t seen his first film “Maelstrom”(I just added to the top of my Netflix queue), I enjoyed “Prisoners” immensely and “Incendies” is one of my favorite films ever. I ended up driving over a half hour to see this is a little indie theater in south eastern New York and it was worth the time and gas mileage. Denis Villeneuve decided that when he was making this film, adapted from the novel “The Double” by Jose Saramago, he decided to make the best David Lynch film since David Lynch’s last film. Look at my profile picture. Do you think I loved the film? Sure did guys. Sure did.
“Enemy” stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Adam, a history professor who gets a movie recommendation one day and after watching it, finds a completely identical person to himself in the film. With some research, Adam finds the man and works up the courage to confront him. That’s all you’re getting guys. The film twists and turns so much while staying eerily still and creepy that any other information about the plot will ruin things Plus, if you’ve read my ramblings you will have learned that I hate giving away plot. Hell, I don’t even like watching trailers anymore due to my interest in holding complete surprise when I enter a theater. This is why you read who made the film ladies and gentlemen and also why you remember their names. I didn’t see the trailer to this but as soon as I heard that Villeneuve had a film out I made time to see it. I ended up being the only person in the theater. The box office attendant told me that everybody has been ripping on the film and that nobody liked it. I told him that those people expected a more polished and cookie cutter film. That is not what you will end up getting. What the film is is a puzzle that only serious pondering will solve. I’m not even bragging. I had to look up the damn meaning of the film after driving a half hour and not getting really anywhere besides a few more obvious mysteries. This is where the David Lynch in this film flourishes. There are a lot of scenes that make little to no sense up front but when you start putting pieces together, those pieces start t look like something recognizable. Even then it can be so abstract that the finished product still will turn people away. That;s okay. The film is definitely not for everybody but I applaud Villeneuve for trying something different and pleasing the shit out of me.
If I were to find some more general appreciation that more people would like, I’d have to go with both color scheme and the acting of Jake Gyllenhaal. I always knew Gyllenhaal was a great actor but he’s really been coming into his own as of late. His role and the last two Villeneuve films have been fantastic and even his work in more mainstream films such as “Source Code” has been good. Playing two characters, Gyllenhaal plays with subtly brilliantly as we really aren’t given any other clues as to who is who besides body language and voice tics. He played both versions of himself great. The other standout is the color scheme. The very bleak and hazy colors that bled into the film were very comforting but also melted with each scene so well. The films score, an eerie and haunting storm of violins and cellos blended with the colors flashing on the screen. The camera work was amazing just as every one of his films has been amazing. I just can’t wait to see another one of his films.
I wish I could discuss more without going into the plot of the film but that would be a disservice as this is really a film to be experience with no prior knowledge. It’s in a very limited release right now and may be hard to find but if you can find one under an hour drive and are fans of films that don’t make a lot of sense but invite the viewing in for serious thought process, then take the drive and see it. The film will certainly give you a one of a kind experience even if you end up not liking it. Shit, the ending alone was one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen and I still have no idea what happened. You won’t be disappointed.
There is only one word I can think of to describe Wes Anderson’s latest film. That word is “delightful”.
There has not, to this day, been a Wes Anderson film I did not love. Every single one of them is special in my eyes. Had I known absolutely nothing about this film, I still would have had no doubt in my mind that it was directed by Wes Anderson. He has a style all his own and that has been copied by almost nobody. There’s something about that kind of niche that I just find enchanting. Enchanting could also describe this film, which stars more of my favorite people then I think any other film I’ve seen. I mean, look at that list of people who contribute to this film. It’s an indie film fan’s dream come true. I’m going to spoil something a little bit. Some of those names have such little screen time that I’d be surprised if they spent a full day on set, but the whole picture is empty without them. Everything about the film enchanted me. There are rarely times where I have a smile on my face throughout an entire film, and Wes Anderson has done this to me multiple times, this just being the latest.
In one of his more complex stories he has brought to the screen, the film takes place, during many time periods, in and around The Grand Budapest Hotel, located in a fictitious Polish town during times of war. During these time periods we are introduced to two characters whose friendship is the reason this story is being told. M. Gustave, played as perfect as anybody could play any character by Ralph Fiennes, and his protege lobby boy Zero, played at an old age by F. Murray Abraham and at a young one by a breakout actor named Tony Revolori, are the centerpieces of an intricate yet vastly profound story. M. Gustave has just inherited a small fortune from one of his hotel guests whom he has developed a relationship with and the immediate family of said guest is trying to get rid of him for their own greedy ways. Like always, I don’t want to give away much of the plot but that is pretty much the gist of the film and you’re going to have to find out the rest for yourself.
When “Moonrise Kingdom” came out last year, I thought to myself that one one Wes Anderson was going to cease being able to bring us fantastic cinema. I guess this is just some innate idea that at some point people start to decline but Anderson is proving that wrong by giving us some of his best work as his career continues to move forward. There is n doubt in my mind that he’s going to be making incredible movies until he dies of old age. This latest one is something special, but certainly has some of his traditional trademark qualities. One of the things I love about his work is how symmetrical every one of his shots are. There is a fluid way he moves the camera into the perfect position where we have an actor centered in front of the screen with nearly identical lines surrounding him. Perhaps it’s my OCD leaking through my eyes. I just can’t gt enough of it. He also utilizes the shots from a distance that he has been using since Fantastic Mr. Fox. We see some characters off scurrying along the base of the shot while behind them is a huge scene of mountains or buildings, obviously made of cardboard and paper, but nevertheless whimsical and charming. The wit in this film is also rampant. There were countless times I literally burst out laughing, mostly from either Ralph Fiennes or Adrian Brody saying something insane. The film, which is rated R, uses the perfect time and place to insert either bad language, or in some cases hilarious and crude nudity. It was a riot, and while I didn’t see the movie with a lot of people, the humor was felt all around. Everybody was laughing. It’s a hilarious film.
With such a talented cast, you can’t let everybody have a huge amount of screen time. There just isn’t enough time in the world. Everybody was pretty perfect though. Tilda Swinton was literally unrecognizable as an 84 year old woman. Willem Dafoe was a cold, evil man that almost seemed to turn into a vampire at one point in the film. Jeff Goldblum handled most of the legal dialogue with a diction that only the voice of Jeff Goldblum could make funny. Edward Norton gave the best laughs with the least amount said. His first appearance in the film had my dying and he hadn’t even said a word yet. Harvey Keitel as a bald, muscle flexing prisoner with prison tattoos and Adrien Brody with his short bursts of hilarious anger could not have been better used. I just loved every single aspect of this film. Every single character has their own quirks and humor no matter how long they were on screen.
Overall, I can’t say enough good things. Ralph Fiennes stoles every single scene he was in and he was in a damn lot of them. That’s how good he was. When “Moonrise Kingdom” came out, I knew that it was going to be in my top five of the year regardless of what else got released because of how unique and funny it was and I honestly enjoyed this a lot more. I’ll try to get out to see another viewing, maybe with some friends, but this is most certainly going to be one of my favorites of the year and is already inching it’s way up the ladder of favorite Wes Anderson films the more I think about it. I seriously can not wait to see it again and look forward to everything Wes Anderson will give me in the future.
My initiation back into writing mode could not have been a better one. Having redirected my Netflix account to my new address, “Let the Fire Burn” made its way to my mailbox just in time for a lazy Sunday. Ever since I read about the film I wanted to see it due to my infatuation with new things. I had never heard about the events that happened on May 13th, 1985 and this surprised me. I usually know, at least in gist, about events such as these. I’m familiar with Waco, Texas, Jonestown, Oklahoma City, all those various events that captured the nation by storm and turned us into zombies glued to the television. The fact that I have never even heard about the fires that destroyed 61 homes or even heard mention of the MOVE organization strikes me strange. I was instantly interested form the go and what I ended up witnessing was a haunting, fantastically edited debut film from directer John Osder. Let’s get the details of what happened out of the way.
The MOVE organization is a cult. There is no doubt about this Interviews with members try to paint a different story in that they are only abiding by our constitutional right to freedom of religion but when you have punishment for sneaking in forbidden items, you have the making of a cult. MOVE members do not engage in anything related to technology besides a few items that could potentially aid in their movement. They have a telephone yet not running lights or entertainment such as televisions or radios. They live basically off the land with an abundance of food such as watermelon, mangoes, onions, and anything that can be grown in the ground. For protein they eat raw meat from chicken to beef to fish. They are forbidden from eating cooked meat and punishment for doing so can be as extreme as beatings. This is where the cult forms. All of these rules and ways of life stems down from founder and leader John Africa. Members, who all done the last name of Africa, look at their founder as a Jesus Christ figure, even comparing him to Christ for his ideals and even his carpentry. The carpentry part is important as we’ll find out later.
I wanted to set up the details of the organization because of how unique it was. This is not an organization that bass their headquarters in some remote location in the Midwest. This is in the heart of West Philadelphia. It’s like if an African American/Amish community raided the streets of “Do the Right Thing”. Kids are playing on the street while members are schooling young children in their compound in the next yard. It’s a very surreal sight that I just didn’t realize could happen in such an urban city. What everything ended up culminating to was basically a militarized compound smack dab on a street with regular Philly people trying to go about their lives. It’s the escalation of the cult that was so fascinating to me. Small confrontations with police grew into gigantic standoffs with deadly repercussions. It was a wild ride punctuated by some talented editing involving home movies, interviews with members, video footage of committee depositions after the events, and live footage from news outlets. All of this culminated into a riveting story, and ultimately a tragic one.
What the film ended up doing for me, without giving away details, was change my support from the police, back to the cult, back to the police, and so on and so on. What ended up happening on May 13th was a culmination of ignorance from the cult cherry topped with complete negligence from the Philadelphia police department. In simpler terms, it was a shit show of major proportions. The way the film attacks this story however is one of immense dedication to being as unbiased as possible and letting the viewer decide for their selves. I personally was riveted during the entire film. I was on the edge of my seat in disbelief until the credits began to roll and if any of you reading this have had no prior knowledge to this event like I did then it is safe to say that you will as well. It was one of the best documentaries I’ve seen that chronicled an event such as this. It was as I was watching it with an unbiased opinion as it was happening but in realty the whole thing went unnoticed over twenty years ago. It’s a superb film and I’m glad to be back everybody.
My Netflix dvd queue is a funny machine. I had about 13 films in front of this but every single one of them wasn’t available when it was time to ship out so I was surprised when this came in the mail. I honestly forgot all about it but was eager to sit down and watch an old film as it’s been way too long due to all the films from last year that I’ve been cramming in my face. There are so many older films that I’m finally going to be able to sit down and watch now that my Netflix queue is starting to get older and this pleases me. I’d rather watch bad film from the 40s than a bad film from last year any day. “Sand of Iwo Jima” ended up being a completely patriotic cookie cutter of a film but when you’re watching John Wayne and his infinite manliness, it doesn’t really matter.
The film follows a group of soldiers through boot camp to the…well…sands of Iwo Jima. John Stryker is the leader of this group, played by the manliest man of all men, John Wayne. Stryker is kind of a mix between drill instructor Hartman from “Full Metal Jacket” and Tom Berenger from “Platoon”. The men don’t like him. He is tough as nails and don’t take no shit from NOBODY! You had plans to get laid over the weekend? I don’t think so! Looks to me like your bed is a little uneven. That will be a revocation of your weekend pass soldier. Seriously, this exact scenario played out in the film. Wayne, who would later go on to earn his first Oscar nomination for the role, was made to play this character. He takes nobodies shit and dishes out punishment. He ended up giving one of the performances of his career as we follow Stryker through his bouts of alcoholism, regrets, anger, and acceptance. The films co-star, John Agar, plays one of the privates who claims to be an intellectual and finds his Sargent deplorable. What plays out for the next two hours is a cookie cutter production of every single war cliche that has ever happened. Yet, with this being a mere four years after WWII ended, it’s obvious that this film was made as a symbolic power fist in the air for America, and for that I can put up with it.
One cool aspect of the film is that they spliced a lot of great real footage from Iwo Jima and other pacific battles into the film. If you know what you’re looking for, you can spot the actual footage which is always an interesting watch. I’ve always been interested in the years we went to war and the film shed more light on what it was actually like to run up those beaches into a hail of gunfire. Due to the time of its release, you’re not really getting anything gritty or brutal. The men who get killed on screen just kid of fall down or do that clutching to the chest as they slowly let gravity bring them to the sand. Like I said, cliche and cheesy. It was however a great display of acting from Wayne and a much needed break from the glitter and glamour of films released this year.
Earlier last year I wrote about how excited I was that this film was even happening. The cast, aside from Cameron Diaz, was fantastic. I am a Ridley Scott apologist. I thought “Prometheus” was a gorgeous film and although it was written by a man who should have no business in science fiction, I thought the film did space horror justice. The film boasted one of my favorite authors at the helm of the screenplay. I have enjoyed everything Cormac McCarthy has ever written and was excited for his first work written directly for the screen. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG GUYS?
Everything. Everything went wrong.
This was one of the most pretentious pieces of hot garbage I have ever seen. It was like Ridley Scott found a pile of shit in the middle of the room, found out who made it, denied it was a pile of shit, and threw glitter on it. How is that image doing for you? I’m actually proud of that analogy. It is fitting to what this film ended up being. So we have a lawyer played by Michael fucking Fassbender. This lawyer decides to get into the drug trade and then I honestly don’t understand what the hell happens next. Actually, if I had not read the synopsis before watching the film I would have had no idea what was happening during the entire two hour run length. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy films that make no sense. Those films however know what they’re aiming for and try to present it in a unique and experimental fashion. This films plays like McCarthy watched a Tarantino film and decided he was going to write one and use much bigger words. I love the mans writing but this was just a huge failure in trying to be profound and philosophical. NOBODY TALKS THE WAY ANYBODY IN THIS FILM TALKS. The last line was spoken by Cameron Diaz and she used the word “famished”. She wasn’t even being ironic. It was like a high school drama student was trying to sound cool on facebook. I’m just completely surprised by how bad the entire film was.
That isn’t to say there weren’t a few stylish elements I enjoyed. For one, Ridley Scott is just a natural behind teh camera and I enjoyed the colors portrayed in the film. There are also two very entertaining scenes that involve wire and Cameron Diaz fucking a car.
Yes. I just said that. I’m sorry if I ruined it for you but there is no way in hell I’m not talking about this. Cameron Diaz fucked an automobile. The term “catfish” was used in the film to describe what such an experience would be like. I vomited in my bed. Cameron Diaz owes me new sheets.
Let’s elaborate on Cameron Diaz for a moment. Why was she cast in this film. Her character is supposed to be ARGENTINIAN. Does she look Argentinian? Does she sound even remotely Argentinian? That must have been one hell of a blow job she gave to the casting director because that’s the only way that untalented woman got this job. Actually, that could probably be said for most of her career. I’m so glad that she didn’t end up doing what she always ends up doing, ruining good films. Her involvement in this was just an extra piece of lunacy added on to a debacle of a movie. Penelope Cruz was underused and had horrible lines given to her which she delivered with a subtle hint of “am I really saying this?” Javier Bardem decided to do this just so he could have his hair styled like that. I have know idea what he said in the film because of his outrageous blow out haircut. Brad Pitt played the same character he always plays, in the same voice, with the same everything.
Why did this have to happen. It was like the entire production company set us up for something brilliant and then delivered us a failure pile with a party hat on it and a note saying “Suck it population!”. I feel bad for people who paid to see this.
Let me summarize this who thing before I write Netflix a letter asking them why they didn’t email saying “NO PLEASE DON’T” when they saw I had this movie in my queue. The film was a mechanical pretentious slob of pseudo philosophical drivel. That sentence was brought to you by the Thesaurus. The same thesaurus that Cormac McCarthy used to construct 90% of the dialogue in this film. It had a few entertaining scenes. I believe a mentioned a car being slobbered on by an old untalented vagina. It was not entertaining enough though to hold even the slightest of my attention and I would like my two hours back. Oh, an there were Cheetahs in this films that were treated like both horses and house cats. I feel violated.
“Cutie and the Boxer” is a film about a married Japanese couple, Ushio and Noriko Shinohara, who are trying to make a living selling their art in New York City. They have been artists for decades and the film chronicles their artistic journey as well as the journey they take in their relationship.
Let me get this out of the way first. This is a gorgeously shot film. Zachary Heinzerling eloquently constructed this film by focusing on the intimate way that these two artists live their lives. Nothing is held back and we soon realize that holding nothing back is the entire nature of their relationship. It’s really as if Heinzerling isn’t in the room with them as they discuss the problems they have with each other with smiles instead of frowns. They are open books and Heinzerling was able to capture some real forms of the human heart and spirit while following the couple. The film also utilizes a fantastic score by Yasuaki Shimizu. Saxophones and Cellos routinely fill the scenes captured by the camera and add a light and peaceful atmosphere to the film. It’s one of those scores that kind of gets under your skin and makes what you’re watching more relaxing and content. That and I’m a sucker for anything with an oriental feel to it.
The art displayed in the film is pretty fantastic. Perhaps the most interesting art is the pieces that give Ushio his nickname, “The Boxer”, where he straps on boxing gloves filled with paint and punches a canvas from left to right. Did I mention that this man is 80 years old? It just goes to prove that there is something in the Japanese gene that makes them live forever and do amazing work while doing so. Ushio is also a gifted sculture, making make acid filled fantasies from cardboard, usually involving motorcycles. His wife, Noriko, is also a gifted artist and focused more on the art of drawing. Her “Cutie” series chronicles the early part of her relationship with her husband as they raise a child together, mostly while Ushio is piss drunk. This is where the open-ness of the film lies. Her work is literally a series of painting and drawings that highlight how difficult it was to be married to Ushio and standing next to her is that same man with a smile on his face. It’s one of those relationships where you know they’ll stick together through everything due to them being two individual souls spending their own lives together instead of trying to make a single life from two people. I always thought those kind of relationships were the best at making it all the way.
The film also focuses on what it’s like for two people who happen to be artists to share a life together in a business sense. They are both vying for a chance to have their work shown at galleries. Ushio is the more famous artist and Noriko has usually helped the man out and neglected her own work. She was also forced to bear most of the responsibility of raising their child and actually had to give up painting for a long time. She is now able to fully focus on her own artwork and it was great watching her try to succeed. I was rooting for her like I knew her.
The whole film was just magical. It was like watching “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” but instead of fish the art is on a canvas. It may not have been the best documentary in the Academy Awards but it is a completely unique film that will make even the least artistic person want to grab a paint brush. Oh and the montage during the credits is one of the best things I’ve seen in a while. Highly recommended.
When I first saw the trailer for “Rush”, I was honestly not impressed. I remember muttering under my breath that it was going to be a completely cliche racing film with it’s cheap thrills and predictable outcomes. I really have to stop watching trailers and acting like a snob because I ended up really enjoying the film after reading so many positive reviews about it. The film tells the true story of the rivalry between formula 1 drive James Hunt and Nikki Lauda. It reminded me of an excellent documentary that is required viewing for anybody who enjoys racing or even documentaries in general. “Senna”, which chronicles a nearly identical rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, is a fantastic film that should be seen is you enjoyed “Rush” as much as I did. “Rush”, which took some liberties to dramatize the rivalry between Hunt and Lauda, still tells the story of what actually happened in the two years that the drivers were the best in the world. They are stories of true adrenaline filled eras that I don’t think have been seen since.
I think the first thing to be said about “Rush” is that it is an intense ride. Ron Howard, who I’ve always regarded as a very good director, crafted a thing of beauty when he made this film. I was on the edge of my bed watching this. It’s late where I live. I don’t usually watch films this late but I felt the urge to watch something but was a little skeptical on whether or not I was going to finish it. I had no problem finishing this film. The race sequences were some of the best action sequences of the last few years. Howard took advantage of every single sharp turn and car overtake to deliver a ride that made me feel like I was in the driver seat. Recently I drove down to Jersey City where they have some pretty fast go-karts. I think they got up to 45 mph which is nothing compared to the speeds of this movie but just fast enough to be an exhilarating experience. Watching the race sequences in this film put me right back in that kart flying around turns and overtaking fat middle aged men and their wives whom they dragged along onto the go-kart track. I should go back because it was honestly all I could think about watching the film. I didn’t expect that to happen.
The other great part of this film was the acting from both leads. Chris Hemsworth proved to me that he is a fully capable actor. I always thought he was just perfectly cast to play Thor and that his acting skills rode shotgun to a talented casting director but he really can excel in certain roles and he excelled in this. Daniel Bruhl however, stole the entire film. He perfectly portrayed the real life Nikki Lauda. He was able to get me to go back and forth between rooting against him and rooting for him. It’s a shame that most movies only consider one person to be the lead actor, usually the one who gets paid the most or is the most popular but this film proved that there can be two leads commanding the screen and when it really came down to it, Bruhl ran away with it.
I did have a problem with the film. The screenplay, which was mostly solid, failed miserably when it came to Olivia Wildes’ character. She was introduced and before I knew it she was married to Jame Hunt and before I blinked another eye she was gone. There was zero emotion whatsoever between the two of them. I barely saw them even kiss yet I was supposed to feel for them when the nature of their relationship came into question. It was completely necessary to even have her in the film and if the rest of the film wasn’t so engaging, would have completely distracted from an otherwise sound script. There was also way too many shots by Howard depicting nudity where there just shouldn’t have been. I’m a straight male, but even I was thinking “why the hell did you have to have these nude shots that contributed nothing to the film other than the source of erections?” It was just a strange tactic.
Other than that the film was pretty fantastic. It managed to balance the pretty boy lifestyle of James Hunt with the serious and precise lifestyle of Nikki Lauda without coming off redundant or preachy. It successfully ran home the theme that life will give you enemies and that they are just as important as friends. They give you something to be ambitious about and in the case of Nikki Lauda, fight through horrible circumstances. I don’t think it should be in IMDB’s top 250 films of all time but it was an addicting film with some of the best action scenes I’ve seen in a long time.
I didn’t think this movie was going to be for me. Why? Well, I’m 24, not married, never been married, and don’t have children. I thought it was going to be a film that I appreciated but didn’t really understand. In a way, I didn’t understand, but the performances from the two leads and a superb first half left a lasting impression. It’s also good to note that the late James Gandolfini left us with one more amazing performance capping off an entire career of them.
Enough Said is about two middle aged recently divorced parents who meet at a party and take a chance with one another and go out on a date. This is where the magic of the film resided with me. If this was a film starring any other combination of people I don’t think I would have liked it as much but the chemistry between Louis-DreyFus and Gandolfini had me belly laughing from how, well, freakin’ adorable it was. These were two people who had been through the dating scene, found somebody they thought they loved, lived through a divorce, and are now trying again. It was fun watching them feel each other out, stumble through awkward conversations, and basically act like kids again. James Gandolfini, who is famous for being a brash and brutal human being, was funny, endearing, and kind. It was a version of him that people don’t really get to see. It really shined a light on his acting chops and it’s sad we won’t be able to see more of that with his passing. Julia Louis-Dreyfus complimented her partner perfectly and as the film revolves mostly around her journey, she proved to be an exceptional emotional force as she leap through comedy into melancholy gracefully. Honestly, I think she got robbed this year at the Oscars. I would have loved to have seen her up there instead of maybe Amy Adams. Adams was great but Dreyfus kind of came out of the blue to deliver such a real performance in this film.
The only real gripe with the film is one that I can’t help but have. I hate scenarios like the one that Dreyfus found herself in during the middle and end of the film. Now this isn’t particularly a spoiler due to the fact that it’s in the synopsis but her character is a masseuse who finds herself working for and eventually becoming friends with her boyfriends ex wife. Catherine Keener, who plays the ex wife has no problem talking shit about her ex husband, whom Dreyfus is emotionally involved with, and instead of ending that relationship then and there, Dreyfus keeps quiet and lets the situation play out. I have always cringed at these situations and rarely enjoy them when they happen. It’s like those old fashioned sitcoms where the male character sets up two dates ON THE SAME NIGHT? OH MAN HOW IS HE GOING TO SWING THIS ONE? I have always found it annoying that people would put themselves in these idiotic situations and I find myself squirming and waiting for it to end. Now, I understand the importance that this situations holds in the context of the film, but it just took me out of it for a good forty five minutes. The beginning of the film was just so sweet and perfect and it was overshadowed a little bit by too much awkwardness. The film thankfully ended on a better note.
That being said, I enjoyed the film a lot. I loved the acting from both leads and the dialogue/writing was smart, witty, and most of all funny. It’s a shame we lost such a great actor in James Gandolfini but I’m glad that he at least was able to give us one final gem as he teamed up with Julia Louis-Dreyfus to give us and on screen couple that should be up near the top of the best couples in recent film history.
Ahh, back to my old roots of watching bleak films about backwoods crimes and the fight to survive. I rode the feeling I had from watching “The Lego Movie” for as long as I could before I got back to the more gritty cinema that I seem to find myself watching a couple times a week. I hope this isn’t a statement of my personality but light hearted comedies and children’s films just aren’t really in my interests. I’ve always gravitated towards dark drama/thrillers and my most recent film “A Single Shot” is a perfect example of the genre. It is not, however, a perfect example of a superior film of that genre.
I’ll be honest, there are just some things that peak my interest. Dark forests and Sam Rockwell are two of these things. The film centers around John Moore, played in typical magnificent fashion by Sam Rockwell. John is out hunting and accidentally pulls a Dick Cheney except instead of a mouthful of birdshot, the victim gets a shotgun blast to the chest and dies. This is in the trailer. This is in the synopsis. This is in the first two minutes of the film. The following two hours is a “wrong place in the wrong time” scenario that we have seen countless numbers of times. There isn’t anything new being presented in this film. The films director, David M. Rosenthal, is not known for many films, but is a talent behind the camera. This is a nice looking film. Most of the film has a dark, ominous color to it that only adds to the already suspenseful atmosphere of running around what I’m assuming is backwoods Kentucky. They may have stated where the film took place but I’ll be honest, I didn’t pick it up. The film reaks of similar films released in the last couple years including “Out of the Furnace” which was released at nearly the same time. The plots may be different but the feel is exactly the same. Everybody is dirty and talks like “Boomhauer” from King of the Hill. I almost turned the captions on because I couldn’t understand what the hell people were saying and it only got worse because as soon as I started to get the gist of what somebody was saying, they pop in chewing tobacco and it all turns to gibberish. Maybe this is why I don’t know where the hell this all took place.
Like I mentioned earlier, the film is nice to look at. The camera paints the bleak backwoods very well and the minimalist/dissonant score actually kept me from clocking out of the film. Sam Rockwell was also extremely good as he continues to prove he should be starring in more films instead of stealing scenes as secondary characters. In the end the bland, redundant, and sometimes unintelligible script was what did this film in for me. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before and it’s nothing we won’t see again. I suppose it’s worth a rental but don’t expect to be amazed by what you end up getting.
2.5/5
Related Films – Winter’s Bone, The Hunter, Deliverance
I need to get this out of the way. THIS MOVIE WAS AWESOME!!! SO FUNNY. SO AWESOME. SPACESHIP!!!
Okay, that was the twelve year old me getting some much needed screen time on this website. You can only review depressing relationship films, gritty foreign dramas, and anything that falls out of Lars Von Trier’s ass for so long. The inner child had to come out and I picked a wonderful film for that. The perks of working at a movie theater came to fruition as I picked the latest showtime last night for my friend and I to see this film. We were the only ones in the theater. This had good an bad points. The good points were that we were able to talk a bit without the fear of pissing people off and I was also able to laugh like a lunatic during a movie aimed at kids without seeming like a freak. The bad points were that I would have loved to enjoyed this film with other people because it was a riot and a lot of fun. In the end though I was glad I didn’t have children telling their parents what just occurred on screen for five minutes as they drowned out the audio. This film is a joke a minute type of deal. Hell, I didn’t even catch 100% of the jokes and I was paying full attention. Let’s get into why this film was so awesome.
First off let me describe my childhood as quickly and as entertaining as possible. I was an outdoors kid and when I wasn’t doing things outdoors I was inside playing Sega or playing with my matchbox cars. The second part there is important. I huge theme of “The Lego Movie” is that you should honestly build whatever the fuck you want to build and let you mind be imaginative. I had that. I just didn’t have it with Legos. I had it with matchbox cars. I would create scenarios and situations with over fifty cars as I would crash them, create sound effects, make scenery and roads for them to drive, and of course, mangle the shit out of them with vice grips. What? You never did that? The point is that I had an imaginative mind but focused the energy on little cars. I had Legos, but I would honestly play with them for about twenty minutes before I got bored and got my multiple boxes of cars out. I tried a couple times to build a Millenium Falcon but just couldn’t keep my attention on it to get close to finishing it. That being said, my enjoyment of this film was not out of some nostalgic euphoria, but rather an old fashioned coming out party for my inner child.
This film didn’t need you to be a Lego freak when you were younger. The whole concept of playing with toys as a child was in full focus throughout the whole film, even to the point of attaching mouth sound effects to moving legos ships and machines, JUST LIKE KIDS DO. Multiple situations were fixed with thinking outside the box and attaching unorthodox Lego blocks to parts of the body and other whacked out things kids would do with these things.
We’ve had Lego movies before. These movies were made with cheap special effects and looked like they were rendered on Windows 95. This is a film shot entirely in CGI but with the delicacy to make sure that every single Lego block looked real. The animation was so real looking that I had a hard time believing I wasn’t looking at a stop motion film using real Legos. It was great. Everything was Lego. The water was Lego. The smoke was Lego. The fire and bullets were Lego. It was a great sight. I remember first seeing posters and trailers for this and thought it was going to be too silly but in reality it was a perfect blend of kid humor and adult humor. This is what makes Pixar fantastic and what is now making Phil Lord and Christopher Miller household names in animated films. They aren’t just for kids. I’m glad they exist.
The cast is also fantastic. Chris Pratt was the perfect person to play the lead Lego man Emmet. Pratt basically plays Emmet as he plays his one of a kind character of “Andy” on Parks and Rec. He is a lovable but ultimately small brained Lego man that is just trying to fit in. Morgan Freeman plays the Gandolph like “Vitruvius” who is a blind prophet trying to stop the evil Mr. Business, played hilariously by Will Ferrell, from taking over the world. Other fantastic roles include Charlie Day as the 1980′s spaceman…SPACESHIP!!!…Alison Brie as Unikitty, and of course, Will Arnett as FUCKING BATMAN. That felt good to say. Batman and Benny the 1980′s Spaceman were the best parts of the film in my eyes. I haven’t laughed that hard in a theater since “This is the End”. The whole cast was a riot.
Lastly there is a good message at the end. I won’t go into spoilers but parents who bring their children hopefully will be leaving with a nice war fuzzy feeling inside and hopefully will spend time building things with their kid. I expected somewhat of a mushy ending and that’s what I got, but it certainly didn’t detract from the film at all. It didn’t add a whole lot but was a nice way to end a film that’s sole purpose was to entertain and make us laugh.
Overall I loved the movie. I want to see it again. I love being twelve years old. The movie was charming, hilarious, and featured one of a kind animation. I’m looking forward to anything those two make i the future and the film lived up to the hype.
It’s funny. It has snowed in New Jersey more than it has snowed in the last seven or eight years but my free time to watch films has been few and far between. I think it has to do with the fact that I’m actively searching for an apartment but still, I need to sit down and get back into my usual groove of 4-5 films a week. I may get to another film tonight but for now I at least made time to sit down and watch “City of Men”.
Back when my obsession with film first getting started, I would routinely come across a certain film from Brazil on lists that also included some of the greatest films of all time. That film was “City of God”. Now while “City of Men” is not a sequel in any way, it features the same producers and overall feel of “City of God”. Watching both films only reiterated one thing to me. I can never go to Brazil. I will most likely die in a gunfight over drugs that I may or may not have been involved with. Not only is the place full of gangsters and drug lords but it just seems like an overall lack of logic and compassion. People shoot people for little to no reason and because they’re such a bad shot, a few bystanders are directly in the path of the same bullets. Not for me. It is however a fascinating place to set a movie and this is why I enjoyed both films, although “City of God” is vastly superior.
“City of Men” follows two best friends as they are sucked into a world that they are clearly aware of, since they live in the epicenter of its operations, but are not prepared to handle. The film then spirals into a wave of gang on gang violence that really didn’t shock or disturb me nearly as much as “City of God” did. I mean that film was down right brutal in many different ways while “City of Men” could almost have gotten away with being PG-13. The same beautiful yet deadly Rio, Brazil is the setting for both films but in this one you really get to see how people live every day. The streets and buildings look like slums but inside people have modest luxuries such as televisions and video game systems. This was not really the case in “City of God” as that film centered on an area of Rio that police don’t even dare go into. The Rio we see in this film is more of a subdued but still very drug lord invested area. I’ll say it again, you can count me out of that vacation. I’ll keep my snow and bullet free walls instead.
The film was a little messy in the storytelling but held it together enough to keep my attention. The main focus was really the relationship between the two main leads instead of the increasing tension between the two gangs who were trying to take control of the area. Naturally the story created some twists and turns that tested the strength of the relationship between the two boys but it didn’t come off as redundant or predictable as one may assume. Mostly this had to do with the very good direction of Paulo Morelli who, with his team of editors, gave us a finished product that was able to keep the attention on the story but still be able to entertain us with some well paced action.
Overall it was dwarfed by the now infamous “City of God” but that film is considered one of the greatest foreign films of all time. It is not really fair to compare this to that but the feeling is ultimately the same. Bad things happen in Brazil. Do not go to Brazil. Stay in your room and watch Netflix like every good boring American.
Why did I do this to myself? Why did I watch this film the day before Valentine’s Day? I’m beginning to think that somewhere deep in my brain lies a section of tissue that loves to punish the rest of my brain. I knew what I was in for yet I hit play on my DVR anyway. I don’t understand it. I’m still glad I did it because I ended up loving the film.
Blue Valentine centers around the relationship of Dean and Cindy, two people who met by chance and fell in love. That sounds nice doesn’t it? That sounds like something you can curl up in your favorite PJs, get a nice glass of wine, pop in the DVD player, and just enjoy the romance. Well, there are some great elements but what you’ll ultimately get is a punch in the face. Right. In. The. Face. This is not a film to be viewed if you have recently gone through a breakup, but perhaps it’s what is needed to put things into perspective and get the grieving process into full gear. I know it hit me hard. Relationships are tough business. The relationship we see unfold throughout the course of the film is full of intensity from where we start to where we leave off. It’s a perfect example of how we roll the dice. Some people we meet will end up being people we love forever. Some people we meet will end up being people we hate. Sometimes we’ll meet a person and both of those things will happen. It’s necessary though. It’s necessary to go through these things. Sometimes you just have to get your heart ripped out and this film did a great job ripping mine out.
Derek Cianfrance is slowly becoming one of my favorite up and coming directors. His last film, “A Place Beyond the Pines” was a slightly flawed but overall fantastic film and now that I’ve seen “Blue Valentine”, I can’t wait for what he has next. The dude is a wonder behind the camera. There were a lot of scenes in BV that were done using a handheld camera and while the term “shaky cam” could possibly be used for some, what it did ws make the film more real. I didn’t think this was possible due to the fact that Cianfrance had both of his leads improvise many scenes but the camera added an extra sense of realism to the film. Long shots covering the length of conversation kept me interested in what was being said. The way in which Cianfrance also told his story was interesting. The film jumped from the beginning of Dean and Cindy’s relationship to the present day relationship. This, at least for me, kept the relationship as a whole in view. I didn’t forget what they went through at the beginning of the film because I was still being shown the beginning of the relationship at the end. This also laid the heavy on pretty thick as we are constantly watching them in love and in turmoil. It was very powerful.
Speaking of powerful, what performances by Williams and Gosling. They had some of the best chemistry on screen that I’ve ever seen and the fact that they improvised a lot of their scenes together makes it even more fascinating. Gosling has always been a solid actor to me. He collaborations with Nicolas Winding Refn have been a little off but he is a very capable actor who may have given his career performance in BV. Williams, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role, also is at her career best. Williams in particular was incredible once the camera was locked on her face, her eyes in every scene and her facial expressions were great to watch as you could tell she was losing herself in her character. Gosling was charming and also incredibly tragic. Both were incredible to watch.
I know I shouldn’t have watched this film with tomorrow looming, but I’m glad I did. It’s a tragic story but ultimately a real one. Relationships can be brutal beasts and not every single one ends with old age and grandchildren. It’s important to remember this and this film does a great job portraying what people have to deal with when they decide to fall in love. The film also boasts great music from Grizzly Bear and an end title sequence that is unique and uplifting. Great film.
There’s about two feet of snow on the ground right now and more is to follow. What does this mean? Beer and Netflix. “Haunter” hasn’t actually finished yet but I am totally finished with the film. I always finish movies whether I like them or not, and I’m still half paying attention, but I’m not missing much. I’ve seen all I needed to see. I remember when this hit on demand and being curious due to the fact that I have liked Vincenzo Natalis work in the past. “Cube” is one of those movies that I can watch at any time because of how much I appreciated the ambition and creativity. With a bigger budget, that film could have been amazing. Yet, it falls into the guilty pleasures section of my DVD collection. This wasn’t by lack of trying of course. The film just didn’t have the money to accomplish everything it wanted to. Natali was also responsible for one of 2009′s most interesting films, “Splice”, which was flawed and disturbing but goddamn was it entertaining. The fact that Stephen McHattie is in this film was the clincher that I’d check it out someday and BEHOLD…Netflix added it to its library today just in time for my snow storm. Now let’s try to figure out why this film sucks…
This film is too complex for it’s own good. What started out as a simple ghost mystery soon turned into a weave of confusion and plot twists that drained any life out of the original idea. This is the problem with trying to be too smart. People think that all the ideas have been done before so they’re going to have to compensate for this by throwing in twist after twist after twist. You know what this does? This takes the viewer out of the story completely, or at least it takes me out. Sometimes, the most simple of stories is what generates the most genuine reaction. Ti West is a good example. His two films “House of the Devil” and “The Gatekeepers” were slow burns that only featured one twist. They upped the suspense by keeping it grounded. Both are among my favorite horror films of the last decade. They didn’t try to blow the viewers mind but rather played to the strengths of ghost stories. They capitalized on the fears of being in a house/building that is creepy and let the imagination do the work. “Haunter force fed me discoveries. It didn’t let me figure out what was happening or give me time to try to guess what was going on. Every five minutes the path in which we were travelling to was pointed out and thus took all suspense away from the film. I don’t understand how people don’t understand this and keep making films that refuse the viewer the right to use their imagination. This is the key to horror films.
The acting was also pretty bad. Abigail Breslin can be a good actress. Obviously she was great in “Little Miss Sunshine” but we haven’t seen that kind of performance from her since. I haven’t seen “August: Osage County” yet but perhaps the stellar cast aound her brought something out because she was flat out awful in this. I don’t expect great acting in horror films but it’s the one thing that could make a bad film somewhat watchable. Look was “The Conjuring” did recently. The story was something that has been done twenty times a year but the acting, and the direction of course, was top notch, hence giving a pleasant experience. This wasn’t pleasant. This was stupid. Stephen McHattie, who is one of my favorite supporting actors, tried his best but the corniness of his character just didn’t work with his creepy way of delivering lines.
I was disappointed by how much I hated the film. I know that I haven’t loved any of Vincenzo Natalis films but I expected something enjoyable at least. Yet another horror/ghost story suffers the fate of being unoriginal and poorly executed. One day somebody is going to figure it out. Until then I’ll just have to keep waiting for Ti West to release his masterpiece and out horror films back in the spotlight.
It was a piece of garbage and anybody involved in making it should be ashamed. It's not that I just didn't like it. It was so poorly constructed, acted, edited, and written that it seemed like the entire production team made this on the weekends when they were occupied with something else. The fact that they put this remake in the hands of a first time screenwriter shows how much effort they were willing to put into this. José Padilha is a director I admire. His Elite Squad films and documentary Bus 174 are fantastic gritty stories that up the realism and don't hold anything back. I feel bad for the man who came to Hollywood hoping to hit a mainstream audience and he's going to look like a fool now because of inept studio interference getting in the way of his creativity. What a waste of talent. Shame on those studios. This is why I give José Padilha a pass on this one. He should keep making excellent Brazilian films where he has complete control. There are going to be a lot of people who will seek out his films. He doesn't need Hollywood bullshit.
That being said, the movie was atrocious. I don't even know where to start. I guess the first order of business is the one thing we knew would hold the film back, the PG-13 rating. I know that direct adaptions are kinda lame. The original "RoboCop" was violent as hell and why the story was still a basic Frankenstein re-imagining, it was fun as hell. This remake wasn't fun. This remake wasn't even a little bit fun. I didn't laugh. I didn't think any of the effects were cool. I didn't find a single thing enjoyable except for the wonderful Gary Oldman who tried his best to make anything in this film work. I think that may be a biased statement, but he didn't do anything wrong with this role. Another slight positive was just the notion that it's nice to see Michael Keatons face on the big screen again. He wasn't very impressive but it was still great to see. The rest of the cast were horrid. Abbie Cornish shouldn't act. Her attempts at being an anxiety filled house wife were laughable. Joel Kinnaman should stick to television. He just doesn't have the face, voice, or presence to command a film. He's a supporting actor at best. It was nice seeing Michael K. Williams in a role that isn't Omar from "The Wire" but the lines his character was given were so corny that it was like a ten year old in the back room of a studio came up with them while playing cops and robbers with his imaginary friend Steve. The whole cast besides Oldman failed on a major level.
I couldn't stand the writing. They spent almost two thirds of the film setting up the development of RoboCop only to realize that they haven't developed any conflict yet and just shoved a villain in at the last second. Again, it is a remake so I'm not spoiling anything but if you've never seen the original film you would be very confused as to why Michael Keaton all of a sudden became a villain. It was that sudden. The film also revealed all these different plot twists with corrupt cops and completely forgot about closing that part of the story. A major character is revealed to be an asshole and then the scene ends and we hear nothing of it, or see that character again for the entire rest of the film. You could land a space shuttle through these holes. It was laughable.
Oh, I nearly forgot about Samuel L. Jackson. His character was one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen in a film. He acted like a segmented narrator throughout the film giving comments on what we just saw while doing so in a fashion that was abrasive and obnoxious. They also just HAD to throw in him saying "motherf*cker". They had to do it. It was entirely distracting and stupid.
The action was also just poorly done. There was no sense of danger or intensity. It was bland, quick cutting PG-13 video game slop. I actually almost fell asleep during the big set piece at the end. That's how boring it was.
Don't waste you time seeing this film. It's a mistake that should never have happened and was sabotaged from the beginning. If you want to see good work from José Padilha then check out his previous films. This is something he will be forgetting and I will be too.
That was the worst handjob of all time. I’m not going to explain this. This is my way of having fun with you.
So tonight I sat down to watch “Antichrist”, a film which I have been putting off for some time now. Why was I putting it off? Well, Lars Von Trier makes a living out of tearing my heart out of its chest, spitting on it, and throwing it overhand back into my rib cage without any form of courtesy or apology. My first exposure to the man was “Dancer in the Dark”. What a wonderful film to start what would be an on going love affair with the man. I’ve always been drawn towards music and film that go against the grain. I like when people think out of the box and present us with something new. I also appreciate going to dark places where most filmmakers are afraid to go in fear of alienating their audience. Lars Von Trier doesn’t give a shit. He’s going to make his films the way he wants to. The man is a mad genius. He’s constantly pushing the envelope to new heights and I’ve always appreciated that. While my admiration for him is still as high as it has ever been, this film unfortunately did not further heighten my opinion of the man. This was my first Von Trier miss.
After viewing the film I did a little research and found out that Von Trier was going through a hell of a depression when writing/making this film. Holy shit did it show. The story revolves around a couple who had recently lost a child because they were too busy having loud sex in snowstorm. I had no idea Willem Dafoe was so well endowed. No I do. Thanks Lars Von Trier. I had always wondered what the mans package looked like and you have delivered on all fronts. The couple soon realizes that they are in a world of misery and Willem Dafoe’s character, who is a licensed therapist, decides that they should both go into the woods and live in a cabin for a few days. This is where the horror begins. This is where I stop describing the plot.
If you have ever had a messy room before then you’ll understand what I mean when I say this film is messy. All the parts of a coherent story line are in the film except they are in places that just don’t make much sense. I lost a lot of the surprise and meaning of the film because I was being bombarded by random acts of supernatural occurences involving animals and plants. The film is about the evil of nature. I understand this. I understand it more since the film ended however. During the film they hinted at it a couple times but eventually went into full on “spelling it out” mode by the films end. I would have appreciated a little more subtly, by which I mean letting me figure it out by myself, towards the end of the film. I didn’t get that. Instead I got some very disturbing images that I’m not going to be able to scrub thoroughly enough from my brain. I’m am going to have nightmares tonight and I don’t even own a vagina. Again, I’m not going to explain that.
Going through depression is hard. I’ve been there. Lots of people have been there and I’ll venture that most of them have had it worse than me. I was willing to stick with the film during the first half where we see the stages of grief in full play. Once we took our trip to the woods however, the stages of depression suddenly jumped a few gears into full blown lunacy. I was honestly taken aback by it. It was like a light was switched and all of a sudden we have a grotesque horror film. Perhaps this was intended? I know serious depression comes in waves. Sometimes these waves come in with more intensity as time goes by. If Von Trier was going for that then I can say I honestly get what he was trying to do albeit he decided to do so in an odd fashion. Again, subtly would have been nice here.
A lot of people compare this film with “Melancholia”, which is a film that I loved. I get this. Both deal with depression and it’s different forms. “Melancholia” however was a slow burning descent into the illness where “Antichrist” was like a slow jog into depression that turned into a dead sprint to hell. Insanity finally turned its ugly head and I found myself just wondering where my slow paced character study went. Now, this isn’t to say I hated the film. I didn’t. I just had major issues with the foundation of the film.
One thing about Von Trier is that he is incredibly gifted behind the camera. Like all of his films, the cinematography is gorgeous. His usually opening of a slow mo prologue was one of the prettiest intros I’ve seen in a long time except for that wonderful shot of Dafoes dong. I could have done without that. The film was dark. There were very few colors involved and I think this was intentional given the nature of the film. The acting was also very good. Both the leads had great chemistry and while they were trying to sex each other during about half the film, the other half was a great back and forth of body language and eye movement. Gainsbourg deserved her award. Hell, I’d say that any actress that has to work with Von Trier deserves an award after reading so much on what he puts them through. I guess that is the mark of a great director though. Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for destroying the souls of his actresses and now I guess Von Trier has grabbed the torch.
Overall I can’t say I’d watch the film again. I’m glad I got it out of the way but disappointed I didn’t enjoy it nearly like I enjoy his other films. The insane train that the film turned into was too much for me and eventually I just wanted to get off it. Also, if you have genitalia of any kind, do not watch this film.
Sitting on my DVR for over three months, Life of Pi finally was able to breach the wall into my procrastinating face. I regret not seeing it sooner. I regret not seeing it in theaters. I regret not seeing it in 3D. It’s honestly one of the very few films that I am literally kicking myself for not seeing in the theater. I sat through “Avatar”. I paid to see “World War Z”. Yet I couldn’t get off my ass to go see this film while it was in theaters for three months. What a missed opportunity. Let’s just get this out of the way. I LOVED the film. I couldn’t have loved it more. It was perfect in my eyes. Is it one of the best movies I’ve ever seen? No, but just because a film doesn’t make your all time favorite list, doesn’t mean it isn’t a flawless film. I don’t think I can explain it other than I’ll be watching this film for many years to come. It just so happens to be a film that goes against all my favorite films. It’s like rainbow in a universe of thunderstorms. I love thunderstorms.
So let’s try to get through this piece as coherently as possible. I’m not going to lie, I’m probably going to get lost along the way, but this is how I write and the world will have to accept that. “Life of Pi” is a film about the meaning of life. There. I said it. Ang Lee, who has always made films with moral themes, constructed a film adapted from the Yann Martel novel of the same name with an idea. The idea was that he wanted to change the way you think and look at the world. Did he accomplish his goal with me? No. I’ve been pondering the meaning of life for a long time now and I think I have it figured out.
Guys. I’m not serious. Calm down.
There is actually some truth in that though. I’m not a religious person. In brief, my beliefs lay in what I like to call “agnostic ignorance”. In short, I don’t believe in a God, but I’m a 24 year old kid from New Jersey. What the hell do I know? There have been countless unexplained events throughout history that no living being on this earth can explain. Science has been able to explain about 99% of that, but that last 1% is where my doubt lays. I can’t possibly adhere to a belief that God exists or God doesn’t exists. I just have no way of knowing. I am however, entirely open to the idea of change. If something happens in my life that expresses the true meaning of life, then I’ll embrace it with open arms. Until then, I’ll be the casual observer trying to take in as much as possible…much like our protagonist, Pi.
From a small age Pi learns the wonder free thinking and choice. He studies and tries to find connections with many things such as animals, people, and religion. He practices Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Pi grows up and eventually has to move away from his country. The family, which owns a zoo, is moving to Canada and is bringing the animals with them to eventually sell to American companies. In order to transport the animals safely, the family boards a freight barge and starts out for the pacific. Disaster strikes, and Pi finds himself on a raft with a few animals, including an adult Bengal tiger. Giving away anything else would only ruin the experience so I’ll stop there.
When the movie reached this point I was being entertained but I did not know yet what I was in store for. I expected a survival story, maybe a few scenes where we see Pi trying to befriend the tiger and a harrowing rescue. What I ended up getting was much more than that. It was a soup of symbolism, astonishing camera work, visuals, and purpose. Ang Lee and his visual effect team took me into their world. Isn’t that what film is supposed to do? I have always found the great films of our generation to be time machines. They transport you from one place, this case being my bed, to an entirely new and different world. The thing is, you can’t just have great visuals. “Avatar” was a marvel to watch but substance wise it was basically Pocahontas with green people and future war helicopters. “Life of Pi” managed to transport myself into the pacific ocean with a Tiger. I was on that boat. The screenplay was crisp and the opposite of boring. There was just the right amount of space in between progressions to let the viewer take in the situation Pi has found himself in. Like great fantasy films before it, “Life of Pi” was able to show me thing I’ve never seen before while still holding my attention in the story.
The film was beautiful. Like I said, I’m kicking myself for not seeing this in the theater. The incredible night time shots mixed with dark vibrant blue and green colors were seriously some of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The tiger which was mainly CGI, looked so real that I was actually surprised when I read that only a few of the scenes had an actual tiger in it. They were mostly scenes of the tiger swimming. The ability to direct a film that takes place mostly on open sea and doing so without boring the audience is why Ang lee won his second Oscar for best director. He utilized his incredible visual effects team and a beautiful story by Yann Martel to create one of the most immersing films I’ve ever seen.
Before I finish, I want to talk about the moral themes of this films. If you haven’t seen the film and want to go into it without any knowledge of the ideals brought to light at the conclusion then please stop reading and go watch it for yourself. Otherwise…
The whole theme of God is very prominent throughout the film but it’s the message told by an adult Pi at the end that really stuck with me. As I said before, the idea of going through life trying to figure out its mysteries is what keeps me from falling into a dark depression. I hope I live to 120 years old to try to figure it all out and while that is unlikely, I hope to still get as close to true enlightenment as possible. I don’t think I’m there yet. I don’t believe in a higher power. I don’t feel it in my heart. I don’t particularly think that life is meaningless either. I used to. I used to think that when we die we lay in the ground and become ash. The light just goes out. I’m starting to realize that there is more to it than that. There has to be a reason for all this discovery. I would hate to think that everything we experience is lost when our body finally decides it has had enough. It is this urge to live on that keeps me from going down dark paths. This was the overall message for me. The film lets the viewer decide what is real and what is not. If you like the story with the 600 pound tiger afloat with a man at sea for months then it is your right to believe it. If you find that story completely unrealistic and silly then you have the right to do so. Many people like to believe the former. I myself like to find a balance between the two.
Life isn’t all rainbows and happiness. Dark and cruel things happen in this world that can not possible be explained or justified through the eyes of man. You can not blame a higher power or cast that name in vain. Life happens. Ships sink. People die. It is what you do in the face of all these things that gives life its meaning. The relationships you have with people and the relationship you have with yourself is where you should find true meaning. If it is in fact true that there is no life after death and that we all just flicker out like candles during a windy night, then I would at least take solace in the fact that my life was a good story. That’s all I can ask for.
Finally, I am able to return to watching some films that weren’t released in 2013. This year I’m going to try to see as many films as I can in the theater that way I’m not playing this much catch up after New Years. It’s been a busy week for me so I haven’t been able to sit down and catch of with a lot of films. Today however, is a snow day. My home state of New Jersey is under yet another blanket of snow, so I decided to sit down and watch something (hopefully) funny in order to ease into the day.
If you have been reading my writing then you know I’m not a huge comedy fan. I just find more misses than hits so I usually stop trying until I’ve read enough about a film to give it a go. Classics however are always appealing to me. “His Girl Friday” and “Bringing Up Baby” are some of my favorite comedies ever so it’s not a surprise that I ended up enjoying this film, which is a self proclaimed homage to the great screwball comedies of the thirties. “What’s Up Doc?” follows four travel bags that hold entirely different items as they swap owners and cause mayhem. We’ve seen this before, but screwball comedy is more about the sight gags and dialogue than unique story.
Would you believe this is the first film starring Babs that I’ve seen? I hated “Meet the Parents” so I didn’t end up seeing any of the sequels and a road trip film with Seth Rogan just turned me off. I’ll get around to seeing her famous musicals and her Oscar winning debut in “Funny Girl” somewhere down the line. This was my first and honestly I found her adorable. Her character was that perfect blend of quirky and smart that hit the chord with me. She carried the film, which is saying something considering she was partnered up with one of the worst big name actors I’ve ever seen. I just can’t understand why people think Ryan O’Neil is a good actor. The only film he is decent in is “Barry Lyndon” but lucky for him, Kubrick requires a lot of standing and looking instead of reading lines.Maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe the director was a five year old throwing oreos and telling him how to dictate the lines. I just think he’s terrible. He did however manage to prevent this film from going down the toilet and I commend him for that. Other great comedic performances in the film come from Madeline Kahn, who plays the real fiancee of O’Neal. This was her film debut and she nailed the uptight, romance-less control freak, and exact opposite of Babs. Kenneth Mars plays a character very similar to his nazi supporting theater go-er in “The Producers”. His accent and overall douche-iness didn’t get old. Finally the brief appearance of Liam Dunn as the judge was probably the hardest I laughed during the whole film. He was a riot.
The film also boasts one of the most entertaining car chases in film and I’m not surprised. It took up a quarter of the whole film budget. The whole thing was filmed like a less epic version of the chase in “The Blues Brothers” but with Chinese dragons, plates of glass, and the wonderfully steep streets of San Francisco.
It was a very enjoyable film, as most screwball comedies were back when Hollywood had a sense of humor. It’s also one of the rare hilarious films that can be enjoyed by the whole family.
After weeks of procrastinating, I finally got out to see “American Hustle”. When I first saw the trailer I decided that it was going to be a film that I would have to wait for the right mood to see as I’m very conflicted on whether I like David O. Russell or not. Honestly, I think the ten Oscar nominations finally got me to get off my ass and see it. I still haven’t seen “The Fighter” and I waited until “Silver Linings Playbook” was released on blu ray to see it. I ended up liking SLP a lot but I still have a horrible taste in my mouth from my viewing of “I Heart Huckabees” which I considered pretentious crap. David O. Russell has always been a director who likes to throw the plot out of the window when he feels and while sometimes he makes the right decision, like last year, sometimes he makes a mistake, which I feel he did in small amounts during “American Hustle”. That being said, I actually enjoyed the film a lot, but that was due to the absolutely incredible cast and not so much the work of Mr. O. Russell. That sounds weird. Mr. Russell? Middle initials are weird.
This is listed as a comedy. I didn’t laugh much. There were a lot of instances where I said to myself, “this is where a laugh is supposed to be”, but it just didn’t happen. Christian Bale’s come over was where the comedy for me came from. I loved looking at it. It was a thing of beauty. I don’t know who the hairdresser was on set, but they must of had a great time putting that gorgeous thing together. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I was sitting there sulking. I just didn’t laugh the way you’re supposed to in a supposed comedy, which is what this is supposed to be at heart. I could be wrong. Maybe this was supposed to be a semi serious crime drama, but if that is true then the marketing department owes me an apology because every promo spot I’ve seen screamed comedy in my face.
I read that most of the acting in the film was improvised to the point where the script had to be changed in order to make the improvisations work on film. It showed. The first two thirds of the film were all over the place. Characters came in and out and brought back later when you’ve forgotten who they were. Issues were brought up and then never solved or talked about again and motives of the main characters were unclear. It was just sloppy in parts and while it didn’t restrict me from enjoying the film, it certainly could have helped this film be one of the better this year. The thing that truly kept me in this film, was the acting.
The acting was fantastic. All four main stars, with all due respect to Jeremy Renner, deserved their Oscar nominations. I would even venture to say that Bradley Cooper deserved his in the Lead Acting category because he was just as important to the film as Christian Bale. To say he supported it is just wrong. When the nominations came out, I was surprised, along with man others, to see Cooper on the list. Everybody can eat it. Last year Cooper showed me that he can be a fantastic actor and he only solidified that with his performance in this. He was explosive. His “supporting” role partner Jennifer Lawrence stole every scene she was in. She played the logically challenged but secretly intelligent wife of Christian Bale perfectly. All the funny lines in the film were delivered by her. She’s the reason I’m going to start calling my microwave a science oven. Amy Adams was versatile as ever. She honestly can’t do anything wrong. Her British accent wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and she’s one of the few actors and actresses than can sell an audience merely by her eyes. She’s amazing at her craft. Finally, Christian Bale knocked it out of the park with his subtle portrayal as the Brooklyn con man who is too overweight and can’t see that he has a horrible haircut. He was quiet throughout most of the film but carried anybody who was in a scene with him by letting them overpower his character with theirs. He was like a great set up man in basketball, setting up the glory for everybody else but also being completely pivotal in the success around him.
The film really came together towards the end as there finally seemed to be a point to the script and it’s here that I finally accepted this film as a Best Picture nominee. It actually has a chance to win, although it shouldn’t, but it certainly belongs in the race. The acting was easily the best of the year if you factor in everybody involved. I didn’t even have time to mention Louis C.K. and Robert De Niro who were in the film only briefly but were great to see. It may not be a re watchable film for me, but it was a fun watch and I’m glad I finally went out to see it.
I’m almost at the end of my attempt to see as many films from 2013 as I can before 2014 really gets into gear. I crossed another film off my list when I sat down to watch “Laurence Anyways”, the new film from the young french director, Xavier Dolan. I say he’s young because the kid is only a couple months older than me, which is bitter sweet because he made a gorgeous film and I’m sitting at home on my computer writing about it. Don’t worry, this won’t turn into a self loathing post, but it is to be noted that I believe I am a huge failure.
Laurence Anyways is a film about rediscovering the true self and also trying to keep the ones you love close as you go through the process. It’s a gorgeous film. This is really the highlight of the film for me. Colorful slow motion scenes litter the film giving the long run time (nearly three hours) life as we are taken through the ten year relationship between Laurence and Frederique, or Fred for short. Laurence has just decided after two years with Fred, that he was supposed to be born a woman and that he is going to start living the way he naturally feels. Disturbed at first, Fred learns to deal with this transformation, but for how long? I usually don’t go for films of this nature, not because of any ideal issues or bigotry, but rather just an avoidance from the drama that usually accompanies such films. This film however kept my attention the entire time. There were issues but also some very enjoyable features.
I mentioned the visuals already. Each shot was perfectly constructed and meticulously framed. You ideally pause the movie at any time and find a shot worthy of a poster. Dolan is young and incredibly talented. I’m really looking forward to what he does next. The acting was also fantastic with Suzanne Clément really shining in every moment. She was explosive in some scenes while staying subtle and tragic in others. Poupaud had a quieter performance but completely sold that fact that his character was trying to change his body and life. The only thing that I didn’t like about the film was the disjointed narrative towards the end of the film. The first half of the film takes place during the beginning of their relationship with the second half trying to cover nearly eight years. It seemed rushed and forced and didn’t have the same natural flow as the first half of the film did. It ended up ruining what could have been a very very good film. I expect Dolan to learn from this and he is also a very talented writer. Hopefully he learns how to progress the narrative of his characters better because I was very interested in what had happened in the nooks and crannies of those eight years.
Overall the film was very enjoyable. I’m a sucker for the french language so watching this for nearly hours didn’t phase me at all. It’s one of the prettiest films of the year with real moments of passion and emotion delivered by fantastic acting, mainly from Suzanne Clément. It was well worth the watch.
I’ve been on a bit of a documentary binge recently. Luckily Netflix has had a great couple weeks recently in which they have made some great documentaries available on Instant Watch, including this one which has only been getting a smallish buzz. I remember watching the hit television show “ER” when I was a kid and being captivated by what takes place in an emergency room. While the show was a wonderful drama, what really happens in an emergency room couldn’t really be further from what happens in the show. Having family members that are routinely going to the hospital for various reasons, I have only just scratched the surface on what it takes to run a successful hospital. Peter Nicks directs a film that tries to show an unbiased light on the health care system in our country.
This isn’t a talking heads film. What is essentially being shown is a raw look on a typical night at Highland Hospital located in Oakland, California. The film describes that in a period of 24 hours, the emergency room had a total of 241 patients walk through the doors, most of whom did not have health insurance. The severity of the illnesses and symptoms ranges from serious tumors, throat conditions, gunshots, and chronic pain, but also incorporates people trying to get a little Tylenol. Throughout the entire film, the staff at Highland never rests as they are trying to figure out which patients need attention more than others, where they can put them, and whether or not the hospital is going to be getting paid. That last part is important. Hospitals need money to run efficiently but not everybody can pay the crazy amounts of money that is required to see a doctor for serious conditions. It’s a double edged sword that really nobody is comfortable with but is a reality facing our nation. Canada has free healthcare but the waits are long. America requires insurance to avoid near impossible bills…and the waits are long. Some people interviewed in the film waited hours to be seen. Some of their conditions worsened during the wait. These are the problems facing our country and a film like this is a great way to understand what we are trying to fix.
Political comments aside, the film was very engaging. As I said before, the film is presented in a raw fashion, going from patient to patient and experiencing their diagnosis right along side them. Some patients are angry, some are sad, some just want to go home, and the camera pays them justice by telling the truth on what it is like going to the Hospital when you’re sick. The fact that it’s in such a polarizing area such as Oakland only helps people realize what inner city hospitals are like.
It’s a short watch and loads better than anything you’re likely to find on any network television shows. I hope it gets more attention.
I’m a huge voice over nerd. I’ve been watching and enjoying cartoons since I was a kid and at 24 years old, I am probably watch just as much. For the last couple years I’ve been into knowing who does each voice and being the owner of a serviceable voice of my own, have thought about entering the business one day. This is probably the one thing about me that not a lot of people know. I practice impressions in my car and am always goofing around with different voices around friends. I am a nerd. I’m totally aware of this. However, it certainly is a good way to have fun and make a living. For this reason I sought out Lake Bell’s film about the daughter of a voice over legend who is trying to break into the industry as a woman. While I enjoyed some parts of the film, overall it kind of fell a little flat in some areas.
Having an interest in the subject of the film, I really did connect with Carol, played as quirky as possible by the films director, Lake Bell. I think that may be the best word to describe the film. Quirky. Most of the time I’m okay with something being overly quirky but when I’m starting to get very bored multiple times during a relatively short film, something just isn’t quite right. It might just be an old fashioned case of not having any likable characters as pretty much everybody was either horrible, stupid, or incredibly awkward. The only person who had me laughing the entire time was the character played by Rob Corddry whose humor stuck out in a film that had very little of it. There were plenty of situations where I thought I should laugh but just really couldn’t find myself genuinely finding the material funny. Comedy films have never really been a huge favorite of mine but I expected more from a cast like this one.
I didn’t hate the film though. Like I said there were definitely some moments that shined through the disappointment and I’d actually like to see what Lake Bell does next. The film was a semi-hit at Sundance so I assume she’ll be back behind the camera again but I’m going to chalk this one as a miss.
Right up there with Burma VJ as far as revealing and powerful revolutionary documentaries go. There's a lot of great footage in this and some serious emotion.
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Movie comment on Maelström
The_Comatorium
So…after seeing “Enemy” last week I decided that I needed to explore the back catalog of French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve who is quickly becoming one of my favorite up and coming directors. As I wrote last week, “Incendies” is one of my favorite films ever and “Prisoners” and “Enemy” entertained the shit out of me. I’ve heard interesting things from “Maelstrom” and interestingly enough, it so happened to be near the front of my Netflix queue so I push it to the top and here we are. Honestly, I wasn’t floored with the film like I was floored with his other work but I have my reasons for both sides of the argument. I will also note that this review will be brief as I do not enjoy giving out too many details of the plot, which in the case for the film was all over the fucking place. This wasn’t a bad thing by the way.So that description above the previous paragraph? Yeah, you can go ahead and forget that. The story is really about the life of Bibi, the daughter of a famous French fashion designer that is going through a bit of a life crisis. The film opens up with her getting an abortion and the fun times just start pouring out after that. Poor Bibi. She just couldn’t catch a break, mostly because she’s kind of an idiot but she’s our protagonist so we’ll give her some slack. Bibi goes on to make a few bad decisions and by the middle of the film, has a great deal of guilt racked up on her shoulders. Did I mention we have a talking fish as our narrator? I didn’t? Silly me. Not only is he a talking fish, but he is many talking fish who are getting cut up as the story progresses. The film had a thing with fish. Water, the color blue, fisherman, TALKING FUCKING FISH…you can see the theme here. It was like Villeneuve watched the Three Colors Triology and a shit load of David Cronenberg and decided to write and film this movie. For good measure, he added a bunch of creepy spoken word tracks from Tom Waits, you know, you jazz it up a bit.
So it seems like I’m bashing the film. I’m not doing that. I am just in a weird mood and the sarcasm is leaking from my fingers. Truth is a ended up liking the film. Sure it had flaws. This is one of the first major features of a young director. Have you ever seen the first films of some famous directors? Some are horrid. Some are funny. Some are like this where you can see the originality oozing from the screen but the final product just isn’t as polished or coherent as you would like. I think this is either because young filmmakers have had an entire lifetime of film ideas to put into their first one that they over do it a little. Take Alfonso Cauron for instance. The man just won Best Director at The Oscars but if you go back to his first film, “Love in the Time of Hysteria”, which I reviewed on this site by the way, you’ll notice a film that is far from the quality of his more acclaimed films. It was a funny film but that’s about all. “Maelstrom” on the other hand was able to deliver some emotional scenes backed with some gorgeous camera work. The story was a bit muddy at points and seemed to skip around leaving unresolved questions but it was an experiment and an entertaining one at that.
Seriously, there’s a talking fish in this movie. He’s got a cool accent. I don’t know what his purpose was but it made me laugh.
3/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Le passé
The_Comatorium
Right now, as I’m writing this, there is a little boy running around on the floor above me. I think he is playing baseball and I think he has hit for a cycle. Part of me wants to go up there and knock on the door which will ultimately start a fight with the parents. Part of me just wants to deal with it because I’m going to ruin the fun that kid is having. I’m ultimately choosing to let the kid have his fun. It’s a small action that could have avoided some serious stress in that kids life by seeing his parents argue with a much younger snobby asshole like myself. I mention this little tidbit of information because kids today have it rough. I’m not talking about the kids who are given X-Boxes because they asked for one of the ones whose parents pay for their college tuition that they will ultimately lose because they got drunk every day and failed out of their classes. What I’m talking about are the kid who grow up in broken homes…the kids who have to bear(this word usage seems funny but I looked it up. It’s correct) witness to their parents fighting and splitting up. Parents usually think about the kids, but they usually just think of where to store them like they’re boxes of hats that won’t fit in the closet. “The Past” explores these stresses of living in a stressful home but also explores the stress and guilt of being an adult and deciding to have/leave relationships. It ended up being a fantastic film which is now to be expected from a present day master of drama like Asghar Farhadi.When I saw “A Separation” two years ago, I immediately ordered the blu ray. I haven’t given it a second viewing yet, but I am meaning to considering how much I loved the tension in that film. “The Past” is a lot of like “A Separation” in terms of theme. Both deal heavily with the relationship/ships of a married couple and the effect it has on the surrounding parties, usually the kids. The area in which the two differ is in the amazing portrayals of the characters by the cast. Both movies, which seem alike, couldn’t be more different when you look at the performances in each film. I’m not saying one film is better than the other but rather saying that both films have unique and unforgettable characters. It’s the driving force of the films besides the dramatic and very bleak subject matter.
First off, I didn’t even recognize Bérénice Bejo until I saw her name at the end. This might have to do with her hair being long instead of short like it was in “The Artist” but it just caught me by surprise. It also took me some time to realize that Tahar Rahim was starring in the role as it has been some time since I saw the crime masterpiece that is “A Prophet”. This just happened to give me a slight edge in being completely surprised and impressed with the acting. Bejo plays Marie, a mother of two who has recently began seeing Samir, quietly played by Rahim. Samir is still married but his wife has been in a coma for eight months. If that wasn’t scandalous enough, Marie’s “es husband” Ahmad, played by Ali Mosaffa, is in town to sign the final divorce papers and Marie has invited him to stay at their home. Doesn’t that just sound like the worst fucking episode of “General Hospital” ever? Honestly, the details of the film pushed me away for a while. It came off a little to soap opera for me but when I saw the reviews and of course who directed it, I couldn’t resist any longer. My roommate even mentioned, after reading the disc sleeve, that he hoped I enjoyed my soap opera for the next two hours. Luckily for me, the film was much more than that.
Dealing with a complex plot, the film took it’s time with letting everything play out. I’m glad they did this otherwise it would have lost many of its viewers. In doing so however, the film dragged. I’ve been a self proclaimed lover of slow burns but there were two instances in the film where I had to pause and stretch my legs. The film though, never let my attention slip. I was certainly embedded in the story that was unfolding. I cared about the characters and the choices they made. It was just a long haul. This is really the only “negative” aspect of the film and honestly it isn’t really a negative.
The film deals heavily with the theme of suffering and guilt. Everybody is going through serious shit in this film. The kids are miserable at times due to the fact that they see stress filled screaming matches and passive aggressive smoking sessions in the same hour. The oldest daughter can’t stand being at home because of teh situation, which only makes her mother angrier, making the situation worse. Ahmad comes into the picture to sign the divorce and becomes sort of middle man between the daughter and mother, mopping up what has been spilled all over the floor. Farhadi uses symbolism outstandingly in the film as there is literally at one point, a can of paint spilled all over the floor which Ahmad steps in to clean up, even though he really has no reason to considering it isn’t his house. Another scene has Ahmad fixing a sink pipe for no reason other than to fix it. I love little direction details like that. It’s the first sign of a well written film. Farhadi also implements a character that is literally never on screen (except for one brief second), which is Samir’s wife who is in a coma. In essence, she is the most important character in the film considering all of the fighting and sadness revolves around her situation. It’s a clever way to construct a story around when we never see the reason why all these fights are happening. We get to see the drama from different points of view, but never from the point of view of the subject. “The Descendants” did a similar thing which is what made the ending of that film so powerful, even though I believe “The Past” has an even better ending.
…
Overall the film was a heavy experience on what it is like trying to live in the present when you haven’t cleaned up your past yet. Decisions that are made carry through until they are resolved. In one point in the film Samir tells Marie that “When two people see each other after 4 years and still fight together, it shows that there is something unsolved between them.” It’s a wonderful line that beautifully describes many of the themes that are going on during the duration of the film. The ending of the film just goes to show that even if two people are the furthest away that they can be, their past can be the only thing that brings them back together. It was one of the most touching and poetic endings I’ve seen in a long time. I actually went back and watched it four times because of how beautiful it is. It was a cherry on top of an excellent film by Asghar Farhadi as he continues to sit on his throne as the master of family drama.
4.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Enemy
The_Comatorium
This entry is kinda fucked up.Lately I have been thinking of what up underrated directors do I think are going to be the next big thing in film. Obviously guys like Paul Thomas Anderson and Spike Jonze have been receiving recognition for their work due to their originality and dedication to their work They aren’t pumping out films left and right and what we are ultimately left with is engaging cinema that is going to be talked about for years to come. Denis Villeneuve should be added to that list. He is seriously growing into one of my favorite directors working today. This film just etched it into stone that he is the real deal. While I still haven’t seen his first film “Maelstrom”(I just added to the top of my Netflix queue), I enjoyed “Prisoners” immensely and “Incendies” is one of my favorite films ever. I ended up driving over a half hour to see this is a little indie theater in south eastern New York and it was worth the time and gas mileage. Denis Villeneuve decided that when he was making this film, adapted from the novel “The Double” by Jose Saramago, he decided to make the best David Lynch film since David Lynch’s last film. Look at my profile picture. Do you think I loved the film? Sure did guys. Sure did.
“Enemy” stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Adam, a history professor who gets a movie recommendation one day and after watching it, finds a completely identical person to himself in the film. With some research, Adam finds the man and works up the courage to confront him. That’s all you’re getting guys. The film twists and turns so much while staying eerily still and creepy that any other information about the plot will ruin things Plus, if you’ve read my ramblings you will have learned that I hate giving away plot. Hell, I don’t even like watching trailers anymore due to my interest in holding complete surprise when I enter a theater. This is why you read who made the film ladies and gentlemen and also why you remember their names. I didn’t see the trailer to this but as soon as I heard that Villeneuve had a film out I made time to see it. I ended up being the only person in the theater. The box office attendant told me that everybody has been ripping on the film and that nobody liked it. I told him that those people expected a more polished and cookie cutter film. That is not what you will end up getting. What the film is is a puzzle that only serious pondering will solve. I’m not even bragging. I had to look up the damn meaning of the film after driving a half hour and not getting really anywhere besides a few more obvious mysteries. This is where the David Lynch in this film flourishes. There are a lot of scenes that make little to no sense up front but when you start putting pieces together, those pieces start t look like something recognizable. Even then it can be so abstract that the finished product still will turn people away. That;s okay. The film is definitely not for everybody but I applaud Villeneuve for trying something different and pleasing the shit out of me.
If I were to find some more general appreciation that more people would like, I’d have to go with both color scheme and the acting of Jake Gyllenhaal. I always knew Gyllenhaal was a great actor but he’s really been coming into his own as of late. His role and the last two Villeneuve films have been fantastic and even his work in more mainstream films such as “Source Code” has been good. Playing two characters, Gyllenhaal plays with subtly brilliantly as we really aren’t given any other clues as to who is who besides body language and voice tics. He played both versions of himself great. The other standout is the color scheme. The very bleak and hazy colors that bled into the film were very comforting but also melted with each scene so well. The films score, an eerie and haunting storm of violins and cellos blended with the colors flashing on the screen. The camera work was amazing just as every one of his films has been amazing. I just can’t wait to see another one of his films.
I wish I could discuss more without going into the plot of the film but that would be a disservice as this is really a film to be experience with no prior knowledge. It’s in a very limited release right now and may be hard to find but if you can find one under an hour drive and are fans of films that don’t make a lot of sense but invite the viewing in for serious thought process, then take the drive and see it. The film will certainly give you a one of a kind experience even if you end up not liking it. Shit, the ending alone was one of the most unique things I’ve ever seen and I still have no idea what happened. You won’t be disappointed.
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on The Grand Budapest Hotel
The_Comatorium
There is only one word I can think of to describe Wes Anderson’s latest film. That word is “delightful”.There has not, to this day, been a Wes Anderson film I did not love. Every single one of them is special in my eyes. Had I known absolutely nothing about this film, I still would have had no doubt in my mind that it was directed by Wes Anderson. He has a style all his own and that has been copied by almost nobody. There’s something about that kind of niche that I just find enchanting. Enchanting could also describe this film, which stars more of my favorite people then I think any other film I’ve seen. I mean, look at that list of people who contribute to this film. It’s an indie film fan’s dream come true. I’m going to spoil something a little bit. Some of those names have such little screen time that I’d be surprised if they spent a full day on set, but the whole picture is empty without them. Everything about the film enchanted me. There are rarely times where I have a smile on my face throughout an entire film, and Wes Anderson has done this to me multiple times, this just being the latest.
In one of his more complex stories he has brought to the screen, the film takes place, during many time periods, in and around The Grand Budapest Hotel, located in a fictitious Polish town during times of war. During these time periods we are introduced to two characters whose friendship is the reason this story is being told. M. Gustave, played as perfect as anybody could play any character by Ralph Fiennes, and his protege lobby boy Zero, played at an old age by F. Murray Abraham and at a young one by a breakout actor named Tony Revolori, are the centerpieces of an intricate yet vastly profound story. M. Gustave has just inherited a small fortune from one of his hotel guests whom he has developed a relationship with and the immediate family of said guest is trying to get rid of him for their own greedy ways. Like always, I don’t want to give away much of the plot but that is pretty much the gist of the film and you’re going to have to find out the rest for yourself.
When “Moonrise Kingdom” came out last year, I thought to myself that one one Wes Anderson was going to cease being able to bring us fantastic cinema. I guess this is just some innate idea that at some point people start to decline but Anderson is proving that wrong by giving us some of his best work as his career continues to move forward. There is n doubt in my mind that he’s going to be making incredible movies until he dies of old age. This latest one is something special, but certainly has some of his traditional trademark qualities. One of the things I love about his work is how symmetrical every one of his shots are. There is a fluid way he moves the camera into the perfect position where we have an actor centered in front of the screen with nearly identical lines surrounding him. Perhaps it’s my OCD leaking through my eyes. I just can’t gt enough of it. He also utilizes the shots from a distance that he has been using since Fantastic Mr. Fox. We see some characters off scurrying along the base of the shot while behind them is a huge scene of mountains or buildings, obviously made of cardboard and paper, but nevertheless whimsical and charming. The wit in this film is also rampant. There were countless times I literally burst out laughing, mostly from either Ralph Fiennes or Adrian Brody saying something insane. The film, which is rated R, uses the perfect time and place to insert either bad language, or in some cases hilarious and crude nudity. It was a riot, and while I didn’t see the movie with a lot of people, the humor was felt all around. Everybody was laughing. It’s a hilarious film.
With such a talented cast, you can’t let everybody have a huge amount of screen time. There just isn’t enough time in the world. Everybody was pretty perfect though. Tilda Swinton was literally unrecognizable as an 84 year old woman. Willem Dafoe was a cold, evil man that almost seemed to turn into a vampire at one point in the film. Jeff Goldblum handled most of the legal dialogue with a diction that only the voice of Jeff Goldblum could make funny. Edward Norton gave the best laughs with the least amount said. His first appearance in the film had my dying and he hadn’t even said a word yet. Harvey Keitel as a bald, muscle flexing prisoner with prison tattoos and Adrien Brody with his short bursts of hilarious anger could not have been better used. I just loved every single aspect of this film. Every single character has their own quirks and humor no matter how long they were on screen.
Overall, I can’t say enough good things. Ralph Fiennes stoles every single scene he was in and he was in a damn lot of them. That’s how good he was. When “Moonrise Kingdom” came out, I knew that it was going to be in my top five of the year regardless of what else got released because of how unique and funny it was and I honestly enjoyed this a lot more. I’ll try to get out to see another viewing, maybe with some friends, but this is most certainly going to be one of my favorites of the year and is already inching it’s way up the ladder of favorite Wes Anderson films the more I think about it. I seriously can not wait to see it again and look forward to everything Wes Anderson will give me in the future.
5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Let the Fire Burn
The_Comatorium
My initiation back into writing mode could not have been a better one. Having redirected my Netflix account to my new address, “Let the Fire Burn” made its way to my mailbox just in time for a lazy Sunday. Ever since I read about the film I wanted to see it due to my infatuation with new things. I had never heard about the events that happened on May 13th, 1985 and this surprised me. I usually know, at least in gist, about events such as these. I’m familiar with Waco, Texas, Jonestown, Oklahoma City, all those various events that captured the nation by storm and turned us into zombies glued to the television. The fact that I have never even heard about the fires that destroyed 61 homes or even heard mention of the MOVE organization strikes me strange. I was instantly interested form the go and what I ended up witnessing was a haunting, fantastically edited debut film from directer John Osder. Let’s get the details of what happened out of the way.The MOVE organization is a cult. There is no doubt about this Interviews with members try to paint a different story in that they are only abiding by our constitutional right to freedom of religion but when you have punishment for sneaking in forbidden items, you have the making of a cult. MOVE members do not engage in anything related to technology besides a few items that could potentially aid in their movement. They have a telephone yet not running lights or entertainment such as televisions or radios. They live basically off the land with an abundance of food such as watermelon, mangoes, onions, and anything that can be grown in the ground. For protein they eat raw meat from chicken to beef to fish. They are forbidden from eating cooked meat and punishment for doing so can be as extreme as beatings. This is where the cult forms. All of these rules and ways of life stems down from founder and leader John Africa. Members, who all done the last name of Africa, look at their founder as a Jesus Christ figure, even comparing him to Christ for his ideals and even his carpentry. The carpentry part is important as we’ll find out later.
I wanted to set up the details of the organization because of how unique it was. This is not an organization that bass their headquarters in some remote location in the Midwest. This is in the heart of West Philadelphia. It’s like if an African American/Amish community raided the streets of “Do the Right Thing”. Kids are playing on the street while members are schooling young children in their compound in the next yard. It’s a very surreal sight that I just didn’t realize could happen in such an urban city. What everything ended up culminating to was basically a militarized compound smack dab on a street with regular Philly people trying to go about their lives. It’s the escalation of the cult that was so fascinating to me. Small confrontations with police grew into gigantic standoffs with deadly repercussions. It was a wild ride punctuated by some talented editing involving home movies, interviews with members, video footage of committee depositions after the events, and live footage from news outlets. All of this culminated into a riveting story, and ultimately a tragic one.
What the film ended up doing for me, without giving away details, was change my support from the police, back to the cult, back to the police, and so on and so on. What ended up happening on May 13th was a culmination of ignorance from the cult cherry topped with complete negligence from the Philadelphia police department. In simpler terms, it was a shit show of major proportions. The way the film attacks this story however is one of immense dedication to being as unbiased as possible and letting the viewer decide for their selves. I personally was riveted during the entire film. I was on the edge of my seat in disbelief until the credits began to roll and if any of you reading this have had no prior knowledge to this event like I did then it is safe to say that you will as well. It was one of the best documentaries I’ve seen that chronicled an event such as this. It was as I was watching it with an unbiased opinion as it was happening but in realty the whole thing went unnoticed over twenty years ago. It’s a superb film and I’m glad to be back everybody.
4.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Sands of Iwo Jima
The_Comatorium
My Netflix dvd queue is a funny machine. I had about 13 films in front of this but every single one of them wasn’t available when it was time to ship out so I was surprised when this came in the mail. I honestly forgot all about it but was eager to sit down and watch an old film as it’s been way too long due to all the films from last year that I’ve been cramming in my face. There are so many older films that I’m finally going to be able to sit down and watch now that my Netflix queue is starting to get older and this pleases me. I’d rather watch bad film from the 40s than a bad film from last year any day. “Sand of Iwo Jima” ended up being a completely patriotic cookie cutter of a film but when you’re watching John Wayne and his infinite manliness, it doesn’t really matter.The film follows a group of soldiers through boot camp to the…well…sands of Iwo Jima. John Stryker is the leader of this group, played by the manliest man of all men, John Wayne. Stryker is kind of a mix between drill instructor Hartman from “Full Metal Jacket” and Tom Berenger from “Platoon”. The men don’t like him. He is tough as nails and don’t take no shit from NOBODY! You had plans to get laid over the weekend? I don’t think so! Looks to me like your bed is a little uneven. That will be a revocation of your weekend pass soldier. Seriously, this exact scenario played out in the film. Wayne, who would later go on to earn his first Oscar nomination for the role, was made to play this character. He takes nobodies shit and dishes out punishment. He ended up giving one of the performances of his career as we follow Stryker through his bouts of alcoholism, regrets, anger, and acceptance. The films co-star, John Agar, plays one of the privates who claims to be an intellectual and finds his Sargent deplorable. What plays out for the next two hours is a cookie cutter production of every single war cliche that has ever happened. Yet, with this being a mere four years after WWII ended, it’s obvious that this film was made as a symbolic power fist in the air for America, and for that I can put up with it.
One cool aspect of the film is that they spliced a lot of great real footage from Iwo Jima and other pacific battles into the film. If you know what you’re looking for, you can spot the actual footage which is always an interesting watch. I’ve always been interested in the years we went to war and the film shed more light on what it was actually like to run up those beaches into a hail of gunfire. Due to the time of its release, you’re not really getting anything gritty or brutal. The men who get killed on screen just kid of fall down or do that clutching to the chest as they slowly let gravity bring them to the sand. Like I said, cliche and cheesy. It was however a great display of acting from Wayne and a much needed break from the glitter and glamour of films released this year.
2.5/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/03/18/classic-review-sands-of-iwo-jima-1949/
Movie comment on The Counselor
The_Comatorium
Earlier last year I wrote about how excited I was that this film was even happening. The cast, aside from Cameron Diaz, was fantastic. I am a Ridley Scott apologist. I thought “Prometheus” was a gorgeous film and although it was written by a man who should have no business in science fiction, I thought the film did space horror justice. The film boasted one of my favorite authors at the helm of the screenplay. I have enjoyed everything Cormac McCarthy has ever written and was excited for his first work written directly for the screen. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG GUYS?Everything. Everything went wrong.
This was one of the most pretentious pieces of hot garbage I have ever seen. It was like Ridley Scott found a pile of shit in the middle of the room, found out who made it, denied it was a pile of shit, and threw glitter on it. How is that image doing for you? I’m actually proud of that analogy. It is fitting to what this film ended up being. So we have a lawyer played by Michael fucking Fassbender. This lawyer decides to get into the drug trade and then I honestly don’t understand what the hell happens next. Actually, if I had not read the synopsis before watching the film I would have had no idea what was happening during the entire two hour run length. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy films that make no sense. Those films however know what they’re aiming for and try to present it in a unique and experimental fashion. This films plays like McCarthy watched a Tarantino film and decided he was going to write one and use much bigger words. I love the mans writing but this was just a huge failure in trying to be profound and philosophical. NOBODY TALKS THE WAY ANYBODY IN THIS FILM TALKS. The last line was spoken by Cameron Diaz and she used the word “famished”. She wasn’t even being ironic. It was like a high school drama student was trying to sound cool on facebook. I’m just completely surprised by how bad the entire film was.
That isn’t to say there weren’t a few stylish elements I enjoyed. For one, Ridley Scott is just a natural behind teh camera and I enjoyed the colors portrayed in the film. There are also two very entertaining scenes that involve wire and Cameron Diaz fucking a car.
Yes. I just said that. I’m sorry if I ruined it for you but there is no way in hell I’m not talking about this. Cameron Diaz fucked an automobile. The term “catfish” was used in the film to describe what such an experience would be like. I vomited in my bed. Cameron Diaz owes me new sheets.
Let’s elaborate on Cameron Diaz for a moment. Why was she cast in this film. Her character is supposed to be ARGENTINIAN. Does she look Argentinian? Does she sound even remotely Argentinian? That must have been one hell of a blow job she gave to the casting director because that’s the only way that untalented woman got this job. Actually, that could probably be said for most of her career. I’m so glad that she didn’t end up doing what she always ends up doing, ruining good films. Her involvement in this was just an extra piece of lunacy added on to a debacle of a movie. Penelope Cruz was underused and had horrible lines given to her which she delivered with a subtle hint of “am I really saying this?” Javier Bardem decided to do this just so he could have his hair styled like that. I have know idea what he said in the film because of his outrageous blow out haircut. Brad Pitt played the same character he always plays, in the same voice, with the same everything.
Why did this have to happen. It was like the entire production company set us up for something brilliant and then delivered us a failure pile with a party hat on it and a note saying “Suck it population!”. I feel bad for people who paid to see this.
Let me summarize this who thing before I write Netflix a letter asking them why they didn’t email saying “NO PLEASE DON’T” when they saw I had this movie in my queue. The film was a mechanical pretentious slob of pseudo philosophical drivel. That sentence was brought to you by the Thesaurus. The same thesaurus that Cormac McCarthy used to construct 90% of the dialogue in this film. It had a few entertaining scenes. I believe a mentioned a car being slobbered on by an old untalented vagina. It was not entertaining enough though to hold even the slightest of my attention and I would like my two hours back. Oh, an there were Cheetahs in this films that were treated like both horses and house cats. I feel violated.
0.5/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/03/14/film-review-the-counselor-2013/
Movie comment on Cutie and the Boxer
The_Comatorium
“Cutie and the Boxer” is a film about a married Japanese couple, Ushio and Noriko Shinohara, who are trying to make a living selling their art in New York City. They have been artists for decades and the film chronicles their artistic journey as well as the journey they take in their relationship.Let me get this out of the way first. This is a gorgeously shot film. Zachary Heinzerling eloquently constructed this film by focusing on the intimate way that these two artists live their lives. Nothing is held back and we soon realize that holding nothing back is the entire nature of their relationship. It’s really as if Heinzerling isn’t in the room with them as they discuss the problems they have with each other with smiles instead of frowns. They are open books and Heinzerling was able to capture some real forms of the human heart and spirit while following the couple. The film also utilizes a fantastic score by Yasuaki Shimizu. Saxophones and Cellos routinely fill the scenes captured by the camera and add a light and peaceful atmosphere to the film. It’s one of those scores that kind of gets under your skin and makes what you’re watching more relaxing and content. That and I’m a sucker for anything with an oriental feel to it.
The art displayed in the film is pretty fantastic. Perhaps the most interesting art is the pieces that give Ushio his nickname, “The Boxer”, where he straps on boxing gloves filled with paint and punches a canvas from left to right. Did I mention that this man is 80 years old? It just goes to prove that there is something in the Japanese gene that makes them live forever and do amazing work while doing so. Ushio is also a gifted sculture, making make acid filled fantasies from cardboard, usually involving motorcycles. His wife, Noriko, is also a gifted artist and focused more on the art of drawing. Her “Cutie” series chronicles the early part of her relationship with her husband as they raise a child together, mostly while Ushio is piss drunk. This is where the open-ness of the film lies. Her work is literally a series of painting and drawings that highlight how difficult it was to be married to Ushio and standing next to her is that same man with a smile on his face. It’s one of those relationships where you know they’ll stick together through everything due to them being two individual souls spending their own lives together instead of trying to make a single life from two people. I always thought those kind of relationships were the best at making it all the way.
The film also focuses on what it’s like for two people who happen to be artists to share a life together in a business sense. They are both vying for a chance to have their work shown at galleries. Ushio is the more famous artist and Noriko has usually helped the man out and neglected her own work. She was also forced to bear most of the responsibility of raising their child and actually had to give up painting for a long time. She is now able to fully focus on her own artwork and it was great watching her try to succeed. I was rooting for her like I knew her.
The whole film was just magical. It was like watching “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” but instead of fish the art is on a canvas. It may not have been the best documentary in the Academy Awards but it is a completely unique film that will make even the least artistic person want to grab a paint brush. Oh and the montage during the credits is one of the best things I’ve seen in a while. Highly recommended.
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/03/11/documentary-review-cutie-and-the-boxer-2013/
Movie comment on Rush
The_Comatorium
When I first saw the trailer for “Rush”, I was honestly not impressed. I remember muttering under my breath that it was going to be a completely cliche racing film with it’s cheap thrills and predictable outcomes. I really have to stop watching trailers and acting like a snob because I ended up really enjoying the film after reading so many positive reviews about it. The film tells the true story of the rivalry between formula 1 drive James Hunt and Nikki Lauda. It reminded me of an excellent documentary that is required viewing for anybody who enjoys racing or even documentaries in general. “Senna”, which chronicles a nearly identical rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, is a fantastic film that should be seen is you enjoyed “Rush” as much as I did. “Rush”, which took some liberties to dramatize the rivalry between Hunt and Lauda, still tells the story of what actually happened in the two years that the drivers were the best in the world. They are stories of true adrenaline filled eras that I don’t think have been seen since.I think the first thing to be said about “Rush” is that it is an intense ride. Ron Howard, who I’ve always regarded as a very good director, crafted a thing of beauty when he made this film. I was on the edge of my bed watching this. It’s late where I live. I don’t usually watch films this late but I felt the urge to watch something but was a little skeptical on whether or not I was going to finish it. I had no problem finishing this film. The race sequences were some of the best action sequences of the last few years. Howard took advantage of every single sharp turn and car overtake to deliver a ride that made me feel like I was in the driver seat. Recently I drove down to Jersey City where they have some pretty fast go-karts. I think they got up to 45 mph which is nothing compared to the speeds of this movie but just fast enough to be an exhilarating experience. Watching the race sequences in this film put me right back in that kart flying around turns and overtaking fat middle aged men and their wives whom they dragged along onto the go-kart track. I should go back because it was honestly all I could think about watching the film. I didn’t expect that to happen.
The other great part of this film was the acting from both leads. Chris Hemsworth proved to me that he is a fully capable actor. I always thought he was just perfectly cast to play Thor and that his acting skills rode shotgun to a talented casting director but he really can excel in certain roles and he excelled in this. Daniel Bruhl however, stole the entire film. He perfectly portrayed the real life Nikki Lauda. He was able to get me to go back and forth between rooting against him and rooting for him. It’s a shame that most movies only consider one person to be the lead actor, usually the one who gets paid the most or is the most popular but this film proved that there can be two leads commanding the screen and when it really came down to it, Bruhl ran away with it.
I did have a problem with the film. The screenplay, which was mostly solid, failed miserably when it came to Olivia Wildes’ character. She was introduced and before I knew it she was married to Jame Hunt and before I blinked another eye she was gone. There was zero emotion whatsoever between the two of them. I barely saw them even kiss yet I was supposed to feel for them when the nature of their relationship came into question. It was completely necessary to even have her in the film and if the rest of the film wasn’t so engaging, would have completely distracted from an otherwise sound script. There was also way too many shots by Howard depicting nudity where there just shouldn’t have been. I’m a straight male, but even I was thinking “why the hell did you have to have these nude shots that contributed nothing to the film other than the source of erections?” It was just a strange tactic.
Other than that the film was pretty fantastic. It managed to balance the pretty boy lifestyle of James Hunt with the serious and precise lifestyle of Nikki Lauda without coming off redundant or preachy. It successfully ran home the theme that life will give you enemies and that they are just as important as friends. They give you something to be ambitious about and in the case of Nikki Lauda, fight through horrible circumstances. I don’t think it should be in IMDB’s top 250 films of all time but it was an addicting film with some of the best action scenes I’ve seen in a long time.
4/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/03/10/film-review-rush-2013/
Movie comment on Enough Said
The_Comatorium
I didn’t think this movie was going to be for me. Why? Well, I’m 24, not married, never been married, and don’t have children. I thought it was going to be a film that I appreciated but didn’t really understand. In a way, I didn’t understand, but the performances from the two leads and a superb first half left a lasting impression. It’s also good to note that the late James Gandolfini left us with one more amazing performance capping off an entire career of them.Enough Said is about two middle aged recently divorced parents who meet at a party and take a chance with one another and go out on a date. This is where the magic of the film resided with me. If this was a film starring any other combination of people I don’t think I would have liked it as much but the chemistry between Louis-DreyFus and Gandolfini had me belly laughing from how, well, freakin’ adorable it was. These were two people who had been through the dating scene, found somebody they thought they loved, lived through a divorce, and are now trying again. It was fun watching them feel each other out, stumble through awkward conversations, and basically act like kids again. James Gandolfini, who is famous for being a brash and brutal human being, was funny, endearing, and kind. It was a version of him that people don’t really get to see. It really shined a light on his acting chops and it’s sad we won’t be able to see more of that with his passing. Julia Louis-Dreyfus complimented her partner perfectly and as the film revolves mostly around her journey, she proved to be an exceptional emotional force as she leap through comedy into melancholy gracefully. Honestly, I think she got robbed this year at the Oscars. I would have loved to have seen her up there instead of maybe Amy Adams. Adams was great but Dreyfus kind of came out of the blue to deliver such a real performance in this film.
The only real gripe with the film is one that I can’t help but have. I hate scenarios like the one that Dreyfus found herself in during the middle and end of the film. Now this isn’t particularly a spoiler due to the fact that it’s in the synopsis but her character is a masseuse who finds herself working for and eventually becoming friends with her boyfriends ex wife. Catherine Keener, who plays the ex wife has no problem talking shit about her ex husband, whom Dreyfus is emotionally involved with, and instead of ending that relationship then and there, Dreyfus keeps quiet and lets the situation play out. I have always cringed at these situations and rarely enjoy them when they happen. It’s like those old fashioned sitcoms where the male character sets up two dates ON THE SAME NIGHT? OH MAN HOW IS HE GOING TO SWING THIS ONE? I have always found it annoying that people would put themselves in these idiotic situations and I find myself squirming and waiting for it to end. Now, I understand the importance that this situations holds in the context of the film, but it just took me out of it for a good forty five minutes. The beginning of the film was just so sweet and perfect and it was overshadowed a little bit by too much awkwardness. The film thankfully ended on a better note.
That being said, I enjoyed the film a lot. I loved the acting from both leads and the dialogue/writing was smart, witty, and most of all funny. It’s a shame we lost such a great actor in James Gandolfini but I’m glad that he at least was able to give us one final gem as he teamed up with Julia Louis-Dreyfus to give us and on screen couple that should be up near the top of the best couples in recent film history.
4/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/02/25/film-review-enough-said-2013/
Movie comment on A Single Shot
The_Comatorium
Ahh, back to my old roots of watching bleak films about backwoods crimes and the fight to survive. I rode the feeling I had from watching “The Lego Movie” for as long as I could before I got back to the more gritty cinema that I seem to find myself watching a couple times a week. I hope this isn’t a statement of my personality but light hearted comedies and children’s films just aren’t really in my interests. I’ve always gravitated towards dark drama/thrillers and my most recent film “A Single Shot” is a perfect example of the genre. It is not, however, a perfect example of a superior film of that genre.I’ll be honest, there are just some things that peak my interest. Dark forests and Sam Rockwell are two of these things. The film centers around John Moore, played in typical magnificent fashion by Sam Rockwell. John is out hunting and accidentally pulls a Dick Cheney except instead of a mouthful of birdshot, the victim gets a shotgun blast to the chest and dies. This is in the trailer. This is in the synopsis. This is in the first two minutes of the film. The following two hours is a “wrong place in the wrong time” scenario that we have seen countless numbers of times. There isn’t anything new being presented in this film. The films director, David M. Rosenthal, is not known for many films, but is a talent behind the camera. This is a nice looking film. Most of the film has a dark, ominous color to it that only adds to the already suspenseful atmosphere of running around what I’m assuming is backwoods Kentucky. They may have stated where the film took place but I’ll be honest, I didn’t pick it up. The film reaks of similar films released in the last couple years including “Out of the Furnace” which was released at nearly the same time. The plots may be different but the feel is exactly the same. Everybody is dirty and talks like “Boomhauer” from King of the Hill. I almost turned the captions on because I couldn’t understand what the hell people were saying and it only got worse because as soon as I started to get the gist of what somebody was saying, they pop in chewing tobacco and it all turns to gibberish. Maybe this is why I don’t know where the hell this all took place.
Like I mentioned earlier, the film is nice to look at. The camera paints the bleak backwoods very well and the minimalist/dissonant score actually kept me from clocking out of the film. Sam Rockwell was also extremely good as he continues to prove he should be starring in more films instead of stealing scenes as secondary characters. In the end the bland, redundant, and sometimes unintelligible script was what did this film in for me. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before and it’s nothing we won’t see again. I suppose it’s worth a rental but don’t expect to be amazed by what you end up getting.
2.5/5
Related Films – Winter’s Bone, The Hunter, Deliverance
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/02/23/film-review-a-single-shot-2013/
Movie comment on The Lego Movie
The_Comatorium
I need to get this out of the way. THIS MOVIE WAS AWESOME!!! SO FUNNY. SO AWESOME. SPACESHIP!!!Okay, that was the twelve year old me getting some much needed screen time on this website. You can only review depressing relationship films, gritty foreign dramas, and anything that falls out of Lars Von Trier’s ass for so long. The inner child had to come out and I picked a wonderful film for that. The perks of working at a movie theater came to fruition as I picked the latest showtime last night for my friend and I to see this film. We were the only ones in the theater. This had good an bad points. The good points were that we were able to talk a bit without the fear of pissing people off and I was also able to laugh like a lunatic during a movie aimed at kids without seeming like a freak. The bad points were that I would have loved to enjoyed this film with other people because it was a riot and a lot of fun. In the end though I was glad I didn’t have children telling their parents what just occurred on screen for five minutes as they drowned out the audio. This film is a joke a minute type of deal. Hell, I didn’t even catch 100% of the jokes and I was paying full attention. Let’s get into why this film was so awesome.
First off let me describe my childhood as quickly and as entertaining as possible. I was an outdoors kid and when I wasn’t doing things outdoors I was inside playing Sega or playing with my matchbox cars. The second part there is important. I huge theme of “The Lego Movie” is that you should honestly build whatever the fuck you want to build and let you mind be imaginative. I had that. I just didn’t have it with Legos. I had it with matchbox cars. I would create scenarios and situations with over fifty cars as I would crash them, create sound effects, make scenery and roads for them to drive, and of course, mangle the shit out of them with vice grips. What? You never did that? The point is that I had an imaginative mind but focused the energy on little cars. I had Legos, but I would honestly play with them for about twenty minutes before I got bored and got my multiple boxes of cars out. I tried a couple times to build a Millenium Falcon but just couldn’t keep my attention on it to get close to finishing it. That being said, my enjoyment of this film was not out of some nostalgic euphoria, but rather an old fashioned coming out party for my inner child.
This film didn’t need you to be a Lego freak when you were younger. The whole concept of playing with toys as a child was in full focus throughout the whole film, even to the point of attaching mouth sound effects to moving legos ships and machines, JUST LIKE KIDS DO. Multiple situations were fixed with thinking outside the box and attaching unorthodox Lego blocks to parts of the body and other whacked out things kids would do with these things.
We’ve had Lego movies before. These movies were made with cheap special effects and looked like they were rendered on Windows 95. This is a film shot entirely in CGI but with the delicacy to make sure that every single Lego block looked real. The animation was so real looking that I had a hard time believing I wasn’t looking at a stop motion film using real Legos. It was great. Everything was Lego. The water was Lego. The smoke was Lego. The fire and bullets were Lego. It was a great sight. I remember first seeing posters and trailers for this and thought it was going to be too silly but in reality it was a perfect blend of kid humor and adult humor. This is what makes Pixar fantastic and what is now making Phil Lord and Christopher Miller household names in animated films. They aren’t just for kids. I’m glad they exist.
The cast is also fantastic. Chris Pratt was the perfect person to play the lead Lego man Emmet. Pratt basically plays Emmet as he plays his one of a kind character of “Andy” on Parks and Rec. He is a lovable but ultimately small brained Lego man that is just trying to fit in. Morgan Freeman plays the Gandolph like “Vitruvius” who is a blind prophet trying to stop the evil Mr. Business, played hilariously by Will Ferrell, from taking over the world. Other fantastic roles include Charlie Day as the 1980′s spaceman…SPACESHIP!!!…Alison Brie as Unikitty, and of course, Will Arnett as FUCKING BATMAN. That felt good to say. Batman and Benny the 1980′s Spaceman were the best parts of the film in my eyes. I haven’t laughed that hard in a theater since “This is the End”. The whole cast was a riot.
Lastly there is a good message at the end. I won’t go into spoilers but parents who bring their children hopefully will be leaving with a nice war fuzzy feeling inside and hopefully will spend time building things with their kid. I expected somewhat of a mushy ending and that’s what I got, but it certainly didn’t detract from the film at all. It didn’t add a whole lot but was a nice way to end a film that’s sole purpose was to entertain and make us laugh.
Overall I loved the movie. I want to see it again. I love being twelve years old. The movie was charming, hilarious, and featured one of a kind animation. I’m looking forward to anything those two make i the future and the film lived up to the hype.
SPACESHIP!!!!
4.5/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/02/20/film-review-the-lego-movie-2014/
Movie comment on Cidade dos Homens
The_Comatorium
It’s funny. It has snowed in New Jersey more than it has snowed in the last seven or eight years but my free time to watch films has been few and far between. I think it has to do with the fact that I’m actively searching for an apartment but still, I need to sit down and get back into my usual groove of 4-5 films a week. I may get to another film tonight but for now I at least made time to sit down and watch “City of Men”.Back when my obsession with film first getting started, I would routinely come across a certain film from Brazil on lists that also included some of the greatest films of all time. That film was “City of God”. Now while “City of Men” is not a sequel in any way, it features the same producers and overall feel of “City of God”. Watching both films only reiterated one thing to me. I can never go to Brazil. I will most likely die in a gunfight over drugs that I may or may not have been involved with. Not only is the place full of gangsters and drug lords but it just seems like an overall lack of logic and compassion. People shoot people for little to no reason and because they’re such a bad shot, a few bystanders are directly in the path of the same bullets. Not for me. It is however a fascinating place to set a movie and this is why I enjoyed both films, although “City of God” is vastly superior.
“City of Men” follows two best friends as they are sucked into a world that they are clearly aware of, since they live in the epicenter of its operations, but are not prepared to handle. The film then spirals into a wave of gang on gang violence that really didn’t shock or disturb me nearly as much as “City of God” did. I mean that film was down right brutal in many different ways while “City of Men” could almost have gotten away with being PG-13. The same beautiful yet deadly Rio, Brazil is the setting for both films but in this one you really get to see how people live every day. The streets and buildings look like slums but inside people have modest luxuries such as televisions and video game systems. This was not really the case in “City of God” as that film centered on an area of Rio that police don’t even dare go into. The Rio we see in this film is more of a subdued but still very drug lord invested area. I’ll say it again, you can count me out of that vacation. I’ll keep my snow and bullet free walls instead.
The film was a little messy in the storytelling but held it together enough to keep my attention. The main focus was really the relationship between the two main leads instead of the increasing tension between the two gangs who were trying to take control of the area. Naturally the story created some twists and turns that tested the strength of the relationship between the two boys but it didn’t come off as redundant or predictable as one may assume. Mostly this had to do with the very good direction of Paulo Morelli who, with his team of editors, gave us a finished product that was able to keep the attention on the story but still be able to entertain us with some well paced action.
Overall it was dwarfed by the now infamous “City of God” but that film is considered one of the greatest foreign films of all time. It is not really fair to compare this to that but the feeling is ultimately the same. Bad things happen in Brazil. Do not go to Brazil. Stay in your room and watch Netflix like every good boring American.
3/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/02/18/film-review-city-of-men-2007/
Movie comment on Blue Valentine
The_Comatorium
Why did I do this to myself? Why did I watch this film the day before Valentine’s Day? I’m beginning to think that somewhere deep in my brain lies a section of tissue that loves to punish the rest of my brain. I knew what I was in for yet I hit play on my DVR anyway. I don’t understand it. I’m still glad I did it because I ended up loving the film.Blue Valentine centers around the relationship of Dean and Cindy, two people who met by chance and fell in love. That sounds nice doesn’t it? That sounds like something you can curl up in your favorite PJs, get a nice glass of wine, pop in the DVD player, and just enjoy the romance. Well, there are some great elements but what you’ll ultimately get is a punch in the face. Right. In. The. Face. This is not a film to be viewed if you have recently gone through a breakup, but perhaps it’s what is needed to put things into perspective and get the grieving process into full gear. I know it hit me hard. Relationships are tough business. The relationship we see unfold throughout the course of the film is full of intensity from where we start to where we leave off. It’s a perfect example of how we roll the dice. Some people we meet will end up being people we love forever. Some people we meet will end up being people we hate. Sometimes we’ll meet a person and both of those things will happen. It’s necessary though. It’s necessary to go through these things. Sometimes you just have to get your heart ripped out and this film did a great job ripping mine out.
Derek Cianfrance is slowly becoming one of my favorite up and coming directors. His last film, “A Place Beyond the Pines” was a slightly flawed but overall fantastic film and now that I’ve seen “Blue Valentine”, I can’t wait for what he has next. The dude is a wonder behind the camera. There were a lot of scenes in BV that were done using a handheld camera and while the term “shaky cam” could possibly be used for some, what it did ws make the film more real. I didn’t think this was possible due to the fact that Cianfrance had both of his leads improvise many scenes but the camera added an extra sense of realism to the film. Long shots covering the length of conversation kept me interested in what was being said. The way in which Cianfrance also told his story was interesting. The film jumped from the beginning of Dean and Cindy’s relationship to the present day relationship. This, at least for me, kept the relationship as a whole in view. I didn’t forget what they went through at the beginning of the film because I was still being shown the beginning of the relationship at the end. This also laid the heavy on pretty thick as we are constantly watching them in love and in turmoil. It was very powerful.
Speaking of powerful, what performances by Williams and Gosling. They had some of the best chemistry on screen that I’ve ever seen and the fact that they improvised a lot of their scenes together makes it even more fascinating. Gosling has always been a solid actor to me. He collaborations with Nicolas Winding Refn have been a little off but he is a very capable actor who may have given his career performance in BV. Williams, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role, also is at her career best. Williams in particular was incredible once the camera was locked on her face, her eyes in every scene and her facial expressions were great to watch as you could tell she was losing herself in her character. Gosling was charming and also incredibly tragic. Both were incredible to watch.
I know I shouldn’t have watched this film with tomorrow looming, but I’m glad I did. It’s a tragic story but ultimately a real one. Relationships can be brutal beasts and not every single one ends with old age and grandchildren. It’s important to remember this and this film does a great job portraying what people have to deal with when they decide to fall in love. The film also boasts great music from Grizzly Bear and an end title sequence that is unique and uplifting. Great film.
4.5/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/02/13/508/
Movie comment on RoboCop
The_Comatorium
@hirvThanks for the laugh.
Movie comment on Haunter
The_Comatorium
There’s about two feet of snow on the ground right now and more is to follow. What does this mean? Beer and Netflix. “Haunter” hasn’t actually finished yet but I am totally finished with the film. I always finish movies whether I like them or not, and I’m still half paying attention, but I’m not missing much. I’ve seen all I needed to see. I remember when this hit on demand and being curious due to the fact that I have liked Vincenzo Natalis work in the past. “Cube” is one of those movies that I can watch at any time because of how much I appreciated the ambition and creativity. With a bigger budget, that film could have been amazing. Yet, it falls into the guilty pleasures section of my DVD collection. This wasn’t by lack of trying of course. The film just didn’t have the money to accomplish everything it wanted to. Natali was also responsible for one of 2009′s most interesting films, “Splice”, which was flawed and disturbing but goddamn was it entertaining. The fact that Stephen McHattie is in this film was the clincher that I’d check it out someday and BEHOLD…Netflix added it to its library today just in time for my snow storm. Now let’s try to figure out why this film sucks…This film is too complex for it’s own good. What started out as a simple ghost mystery soon turned into a weave of confusion and plot twists that drained any life out of the original idea. This is the problem with trying to be too smart. People think that all the ideas have been done before so they’re going to have to compensate for this by throwing in twist after twist after twist. You know what this does? This takes the viewer out of the story completely, or at least it takes me out. Sometimes, the most simple of stories is what generates the most genuine reaction. Ti West is a good example. His two films “House of the Devil” and “The Gatekeepers” were slow burns that only featured one twist. They upped the suspense by keeping it grounded. Both are among my favorite horror films of the last decade. They didn’t try to blow the viewers mind but rather played to the strengths of ghost stories. They capitalized on the fears of being in a house/building that is creepy and let the imagination do the work. “Haunter force fed me discoveries. It didn’t let me figure out what was happening or give me time to try to guess what was going on. Every five minutes the path in which we were travelling to was pointed out and thus took all suspense away from the film. I don’t understand how people don’t understand this and keep making films that refuse the viewer the right to use their imagination. This is the key to horror films.
The acting was also pretty bad. Abigail Breslin can be a good actress. Obviously she was great in “Little Miss Sunshine” but we haven’t seen that kind of performance from her since. I haven’t seen “August: Osage County” yet but perhaps the stellar cast aound her brought something out because she was flat out awful in this. I don’t expect great acting in horror films but it’s the one thing that could make a bad film somewhat watchable. Look was “The Conjuring” did recently. The story was something that has been done twenty times a year but the acting, and the direction of course, was top notch, hence giving a pleasant experience. This wasn’t pleasant. This was stupid. Stephen McHattie, who is one of my favorite supporting actors, tried his best but the corniness of his character just didn’t work with his creepy way of delivering lines.
I was disappointed by how much I hated the film. I know that I haven’t loved any of Vincenzo Natalis films but I expected something enjoyable at least. Yet another horror/ghost story suffers the fate of being unoriginal and poorly executed. One day somebody is going to figure it out. Until then I’ll just have to keep waiting for Ti West to release his masterpiece and out horror films back in the spotlight.
1/5
http://thoughtsfromthebooth.com/2014/02/13/film-review-haunter-2013/
Movie comment on RoboCop
The_Comatorium
It was a piece of garbage and anybody involved in making it should be ashamed. It's not that I just didn't like it. It was so poorly constructed, acted, edited, and written that it seemed like the entire production team made this on the weekends when they were occupied with something else. The fact that they put this remake in the hands of a first time screenwriter shows how much effort they were willing to put into this. José Padilha is a director I admire. His Elite Squad films and documentary Bus 174 are fantastic gritty stories that up the realism and don't hold anything back. I feel bad for the man who came to Hollywood hoping to hit a mainstream audience and he's going to look like a fool now because of inept studio interference getting in the way of his creativity. What a waste of talent. Shame on those studios. This is why I give José Padilha a pass on this one. He should keep making excellent Brazilian films where he has complete control. There are going to be a lot of people who will seek out his films. He doesn't need Hollywood bullshit.That being said, the movie was atrocious. I don't even know where to start. I guess the first order of business is the one thing we knew would hold the film back, the PG-13 rating. I know that direct adaptions are kinda lame. The original "RoboCop" was violent as hell and why the story was still a basic Frankenstein re-imagining, it was fun as hell. This remake wasn't fun. This remake wasn't even a little bit fun. I didn't laugh. I didn't think any of the effects were cool. I didn't find a single thing enjoyable except for the wonderful Gary Oldman who tried his best to make anything in this film work. I think that may be a biased statement, but he didn't do anything wrong with this role. Another slight positive was just the notion that it's nice to see Michael Keatons face on the big screen again. He wasn't very impressive but it was still great to see. The rest of the cast were horrid. Abbie Cornish shouldn't act. Her attempts at being an anxiety filled house wife were laughable. Joel Kinnaman should stick to television. He just doesn't have the face, voice, or presence to command a film. He's a supporting actor at best. It was nice seeing Michael K. Williams in a role that isn't Omar from "The Wire" but the lines his character was given were so corny that it was like a ten year old in the back room of a studio came up with them while playing cops and robbers with his imaginary friend Steve. The whole cast besides Oldman failed on a major level.
I couldn't stand the writing. They spent almost two thirds of the film setting up the development of RoboCop only to realize that they haven't developed any conflict yet and just shoved a villain in at the last second. Again, it is a remake so I'm not spoiling anything but if you've never seen the original film you would be very confused as to why Michael Keaton all of a sudden became a villain. It was that sudden. The film also revealed all these different plot twists with corrupt cops and completely forgot about closing that part of the story. A major character is revealed to be an asshole and then the scene ends and we hear nothing of it, or see that character again for the entire rest of the film. You could land a space shuttle through these holes. It was laughable.
Oh, I nearly forgot about Samuel L. Jackson. His character was one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen in a film. He acted like a segmented narrator throughout the film giving comments on what we just saw while doing so in a fashion that was abrasive and obnoxious. They also just HAD to throw in him saying "motherf*cker". They had to do it. It was entirely distracting and stupid.
The action was also just poorly done. There was no sense of danger or intensity. It was bland, quick cutting PG-13 video game slop. I actually almost fell asleep during the big set piece at the end. That's how boring it was.
Don't waste you time seeing this film. It's a mistake that should never have happened and was sabotaged from the beginning. If you want to see good work from José Padilha then check out his previous films. This is something he will be forgetting and I will be too.
0.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Antichrist
The_Comatorium
That was the worst handjob of all time. I’m not going to explain this. This is my way of having fun with you.So tonight I sat down to watch “Antichrist”, a film which I have been putting off for some time now. Why was I putting it off? Well, Lars Von Trier makes a living out of tearing my heart out of its chest, spitting on it, and throwing it overhand back into my rib cage without any form of courtesy or apology. My first exposure to the man was “Dancer in the Dark”. What a wonderful film to start what would be an on going love affair with the man. I’ve always been drawn towards music and film that go against the grain. I like when people think out of the box and present us with something new. I also appreciate going to dark places where most filmmakers are afraid to go in fear of alienating their audience. Lars Von Trier doesn’t give a shit. He’s going to make his films the way he wants to. The man is a mad genius. He’s constantly pushing the envelope to new heights and I’ve always appreciated that. While my admiration for him is still as high as it has ever been, this film unfortunately did not further heighten my opinion of the man. This was my first Von Trier miss.
After viewing the film I did a little research and found out that Von Trier was going through a hell of a depression when writing/making this film. Holy shit did it show. The story revolves around a couple who had recently lost a child because they were too busy having loud sex in snowstorm. I had no idea Willem Dafoe was so well endowed. No I do. Thanks Lars Von Trier. I had always wondered what the mans package looked like and you have delivered on all fronts. The couple soon realizes that they are in a world of misery and Willem Dafoe’s character, who is a licensed therapist, decides that they should both go into the woods and live in a cabin for a few days. This is where the horror begins. This is where I stop describing the plot.
If you have ever had a messy room before then you’ll understand what I mean when I say this film is messy. All the parts of a coherent story line are in the film except they are in places that just don’t make much sense. I lost a lot of the surprise and meaning of the film because I was being bombarded by random acts of supernatural occurences involving animals and plants. The film is about the evil of nature. I understand this. I understand it more since the film ended however. During the film they hinted at it a couple times but eventually went into full on “spelling it out” mode by the films end. I would have appreciated a little more subtly, by which I mean letting me figure it out by myself, towards the end of the film. I didn’t get that. Instead I got some very disturbing images that I’m not going to be able to scrub thoroughly enough from my brain. I’m am going to have nightmares tonight and I don’t even own a vagina. Again, I’m not going to explain that.
Going through depression is hard. I’ve been there. Lots of people have been there and I’ll venture that most of them have had it worse than me. I was willing to stick with the film during the first half where we see the stages of grief in full play. Once we took our trip to the woods however, the stages of depression suddenly jumped a few gears into full blown lunacy. I was honestly taken aback by it. It was like a light was switched and all of a sudden we have a grotesque horror film. Perhaps this was intended? I know serious depression comes in waves. Sometimes these waves come in with more intensity as time goes by. If Von Trier was going for that then I can say I honestly get what he was trying to do albeit he decided to do so in an odd fashion. Again, subtly would have been nice here.
A lot of people compare this film with “Melancholia”, which is a film that I loved. I get this. Both deal with depression and it’s different forms. “Melancholia” however was a slow burning descent into the illness where “Antichrist” was like a slow jog into depression that turned into a dead sprint to hell. Insanity finally turned its ugly head and I found myself just wondering where my slow paced character study went. Now, this isn’t to say I hated the film. I didn’t. I just had major issues with the foundation of the film.
One thing about Von Trier is that he is incredibly gifted behind the camera. Like all of his films, the cinematography is gorgeous. His usually opening of a slow mo prologue was one of the prettiest intros I’ve seen in a long time except for that wonderful shot of Dafoes dong. I could have done without that. The film was dark. There were very few colors involved and I think this was intentional given the nature of the film. The acting was also very good. Both the leads had great chemistry and while they were trying to sex each other during about half the film, the other half was a great back and forth of body language and eye movement. Gainsbourg deserved her award. Hell, I’d say that any actress that has to work with Von Trier deserves an award after reading so much on what he puts them through. I guess that is the mark of a great director though. Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for destroying the souls of his actresses and now I guess Von Trier has grabbed the torch.
Overall I can’t say I’d watch the film again. I’m glad I got it out of the way but disappointed I didn’t enjoy it nearly like I enjoy his other films. The insane train that the film turned into was too much for me and eventually I just wanted to get off it. Also, if you have genitalia of any kind, do not watch this film.
2.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Life of Pi
The_Comatorium
Sitting on my DVR for over three months, Life of Pi finally was able to breach the wall into my procrastinating face. I regret not seeing it sooner. I regret not seeing it in theaters. I regret not seeing it in 3D. It’s honestly one of the very few films that I am literally kicking myself for not seeing in the theater. I sat through “Avatar”. I paid to see “World War Z”. Yet I couldn’t get off my ass to go see this film while it was in theaters for three months. What a missed opportunity. Let’s just get this out of the way. I LOVED the film. I couldn’t have loved it more. It was perfect in my eyes. Is it one of the best movies I’ve ever seen? No, but just because a film doesn’t make your all time favorite list, doesn’t mean it isn’t a flawless film. I don’t think I can explain it other than I’ll be watching this film for many years to come. It just so happens to be a film that goes against all my favorite films. It’s like rainbow in a universe of thunderstorms. I love thunderstorms.So let’s try to get through this piece as coherently as possible. I’m not going to lie, I’m probably going to get lost along the way, but this is how I write and the world will have to accept that. “Life of Pi” is a film about the meaning of life. There. I said it. Ang Lee, who has always made films with moral themes, constructed a film adapted from the Yann Martel novel of the same name with an idea. The idea was that he wanted to change the way you think and look at the world. Did he accomplish his goal with me? No. I’ve been pondering the meaning of life for a long time now and I think I have it figured out.
Guys. I’m not serious. Calm down.
There is actually some truth in that though. I’m not a religious person. In brief, my beliefs lay in what I like to call “agnostic ignorance”. In short, I don’t believe in a God, but I’m a 24 year old kid from New Jersey. What the hell do I know? There have been countless unexplained events throughout history that no living being on this earth can explain. Science has been able to explain about 99% of that, but that last 1% is where my doubt lays. I can’t possibly adhere to a belief that God exists or God doesn’t exists. I just have no way of knowing. I am however, entirely open to the idea of change. If something happens in my life that expresses the true meaning of life, then I’ll embrace it with open arms. Until then, I’ll be the casual observer trying to take in as much as possible…much like our protagonist, Pi.
From a small age Pi learns the wonder free thinking and choice. He studies and tries to find connections with many things such as animals, people, and religion. He practices Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Pi grows up and eventually has to move away from his country. The family, which owns a zoo, is moving to Canada and is bringing the animals with them to eventually sell to American companies. In order to transport the animals safely, the family boards a freight barge and starts out for the pacific. Disaster strikes, and Pi finds himself on a raft with a few animals, including an adult Bengal tiger. Giving away anything else would only ruin the experience so I’ll stop there.
When the movie reached this point I was being entertained but I did not know yet what I was in store for. I expected a survival story, maybe a few scenes where we see Pi trying to befriend the tiger and a harrowing rescue. What I ended up getting was much more than that. It was a soup of symbolism, astonishing camera work, visuals, and purpose. Ang Lee and his visual effect team took me into their world. Isn’t that what film is supposed to do? I have always found the great films of our generation to be time machines. They transport you from one place, this case being my bed, to an entirely new and different world. The thing is, you can’t just have great visuals. “Avatar” was a marvel to watch but substance wise it was basically Pocahontas with green people and future war helicopters. “Life of Pi” managed to transport myself into the pacific ocean with a Tiger. I was on that boat. The screenplay was crisp and the opposite of boring. There was just the right amount of space in between progressions to let the viewer take in the situation Pi has found himself in. Like great fantasy films before it, “Life of Pi” was able to show me thing I’ve never seen before while still holding my attention in the story.
The film was beautiful. Like I said, I’m kicking myself for not seeing this in the theater. The incredible night time shots mixed with dark vibrant blue and green colors were seriously some of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The tiger which was mainly CGI, looked so real that I was actually surprised when I read that only a few of the scenes had an actual tiger in it. They were mostly scenes of the tiger swimming. The ability to direct a film that takes place mostly on open sea and doing so without boring the audience is why Ang lee won his second Oscar for best director. He utilized his incredible visual effects team and a beautiful story by Yann Martel to create one of the most immersing films I’ve ever seen.
Before I finish, I want to talk about the moral themes of this films. If you haven’t seen the film and want to go into it without any knowledge of the ideals brought to light at the conclusion then please stop reading and go watch it for yourself. Otherwise…
The whole theme of God is very prominent throughout the film but it’s the message told by an adult Pi at the end that really stuck with me. As I said before, the idea of going through life trying to figure out its mysteries is what keeps me from falling into a dark depression. I hope I live to 120 years old to try to figure it all out and while that is unlikely, I hope to still get as close to true enlightenment as possible. I don’t think I’m there yet. I don’t believe in a higher power. I don’t feel it in my heart. I don’t particularly think that life is meaningless either. I used to. I used to think that when we die we lay in the ground and become ash. The light just goes out. I’m starting to realize that there is more to it than that. There has to be a reason for all this discovery. I would hate to think that everything we experience is lost when our body finally decides it has had enough. It is this urge to live on that keeps me from going down dark paths. This was the overall message for me. The film lets the viewer decide what is real and what is not. If you like the story with the 600 pound tiger afloat with a man at sea for months then it is your right to believe it. If you find that story completely unrealistic and silly then you have the right to do so. Many people like to believe the former. I myself like to find a balance between the two.
Life isn’t all rainbows and happiness. Dark and cruel things happen in this world that can not possible be explained or justified through the eyes of man. You can not blame a higher power or cast that name in vain. Life happens. Ships sink. People die. It is what you do in the face of all these things that gives life its meaning. The relationships you have with people and the relationship you have with yourself is where you should find true meaning. If it is in fact true that there is no life after death and that we all just flicker out like candles during a windy night, then I would at least take solace in the fact that my life was a good story. That’s all I can ask for.
Wonderful film.
5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on What's Up, Doc?
The_Comatorium
Finally, I am able to return to watching some films that weren’t released in 2013. This year I’m going to try to see as many films as I can in the theater that way I’m not playing this much catch up after New Years. It’s been a busy week for me so I haven’t been able to sit down and catch of with a lot of films. Today however, is a snow day. My home state of New Jersey is under yet another blanket of snow, so I decided to sit down and watch something (hopefully) funny in order to ease into the day.If you have been reading my writing then you know I’m not a huge comedy fan. I just find more misses than hits so I usually stop trying until I’ve read enough about a film to give it a go. Classics however are always appealing to me. “His Girl Friday” and “Bringing Up Baby” are some of my favorite comedies ever so it’s not a surprise that I ended up enjoying this film, which is a self proclaimed homage to the great screwball comedies of the thirties. “What’s Up Doc?” follows four travel bags that hold entirely different items as they swap owners and cause mayhem. We’ve seen this before, but screwball comedy is more about the sight gags and dialogue than unique story.
Would you believe this is the first film starring Babs that I’ve seen? I hated “Meet the Parents” so I didn’t end up seeing any of the sequels and a road trip film with Seth Rogan just turned me off. I’ll get around to seeing her famous musicals and her Oscar winning debut in “Funny Girl” somewhere down the line. This was my first and honestly I found her adorable. Her character was that perfect blend of quirky and smart that hit the chord with me. She carried the film, which is saying something considering she was partnered up with one of the worst big name actors I’ve ever seen. I just can’t understand why people think Ryan O’Neil is a good actor. The only film he is decent in is “Barry Lyndon” but lucky for him, Kubrick requires a lot of standing and looking instead of reading lines.Maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe the director was a five year old throwing oreos and telling him how to dictate the lines. I just think he’s terrible. He did however manage to prevent this film from going down the toilet and I commend him for that. Other great comedic performances in the film come from Madeline Kahn, who plays the real fiancee of O’Neal. This was her film debut and she nailed the uptight, romance-less control freak, and exact opposite of Babs. Kenneth Mars plays a character very similar to his nazi supporting theater go-er in “The Producers”. His accent and overall douche-iness didn’t get old. Finally the brief appearance of Liam Dunn as the judge was probably the hardest I laughed during the whole film. He was a riot.
The film also boasts one of the most entertaining car chases in film and I’m not surprised. It took up a quarter of the whole film budget. The whole thing was filmed like a less epic version of the chase in “The Blues Brothers” but with Chinese dragons, plates of glass, and the wonderfully steep streets of San Francisco.
It was a very enjoyable film, as most screwball comedies were back when Hollywood had a sense of humor. It’s also one of the rare hilarious films that can be enjoyed by the whole family.
3.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on American Hustle
The_Comatorium
After weeks of procrastinating, I finally got out to see “American Hustle”. When I first saw the trailer I decided that it was going to be a film that I would have to wait for the right mood to see as I’m very conflicted on whether I like David O. Russell or not. Honestly, I think the ten Oscar nominations finally got me to get off my ass and see it. I still haven’t seen “The Fighter” and I waited until “Silver Linings Playbook” was released on blu ray to see it. I ended up liking SLP a lot but I still have a horrible taste in my mouth from my viewing of “I Heart Huckabees” which I considered pretentious crap. David O. Russell has always been a director who likes to throw the plot out of the window when he feels and while sometimes he makes the right decision, like last year, sometimes he makes a mistake, which I feel he did in small amounts during “American Hustle”. That being said, I actually enjoyed the film a lot, but that was due to the absolutely incredible cast and not so much the work of Mr. O. Russell. That sounds weird. Mr. Russell? Middle initials are weird.This is listed as a comedy. I didn’t laugh much. There were a lot of instances where I said to myself, “this is where a laugh is supposed to be”, but it just didn’t happen. Christian Bale’s come over was where the comedy for me came from. I loved looking at it. It was a thing of beauty. I don’t know who the hairdresser was on set, but they must of had a great time putting that gorgeous thing together. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I was sitting there sulking. I just didn’t laugh the way you’re supposed to in a supposed comedy, which is what this is supposed to be at heart. I could be wrong. Maybe this was supposed to be a semi serious crime drama, but if that is true then the marketing department owes me an apology because every promo spot I’ve seen screamed comedy in my face.
I read that most of the acting in the film was improvised to the point where the script had to be changed in order to make the improvisations work on film. It showed. The first two thirds of the film were all over the place. Characters came in and out and brought back later when you’ve forgotten who they were. Issues were brought up and then never solved or talked about again and motives of the main characters were unclear. It was just sloppy in parts and while it didn’t restrict me from enjoying the film, it certainly could have helped this film be one of the better this year. The thing that truly kept me in this film, was the acting.
The acting was fantastic. All four main stars, with all due respect to Jeremy Renner, deserved their Oscar nominations. I would even venture to say that Bradley Cooper deserved his in the Lead Acting category because he was just as important to the film as Christian Bale. To say he supported it is just wrong. When the nominations came out, I was surprised, along with man others, to see Cooper on the list. Everybody can eat it. Last year Cooper showed me that he can be a fantastic actor and he only solidified that with his performance in this. He was explosive. His “supporting” role partner Jennifer Lawrence stole every scene she was in. She played the logically challenged but secretly intelligent wife of Christian Bale perfectly. All the funny lines in the film were delivered by her. She’s the reason I’m going to start calling my microwave a science oven. Amy Adams was versatile as ever. She honestly can’t do anything wrong. Her British accent wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and she’s one of the few actors and actresses than can sell an audience merely by her eyes. She’s amazing at her craft. Finally, Christian Bale knocked it out of the park with his subtle portrayal as the Brooklyn con man who is too overweight and can’t see that he has a horrible haircut. He was quiet throughout most of the film but carried anybody who was in a scene with him by letting them overpower his character with theirs. He was like a great set up man in basketball, setting up the glory for everybody else but also being completely pivotal in the success around him.
The film really came together towards the end as there finally seemed to be a point to the script and it’s here that I finally accepted this film as a Best Picture nominee. It actually has a chance to win, although it shouldn’t, but it certainly belongs in the race. The acting was easily the best of the year if you factor in everybody involved. I didn’t even have time to mention Louis C.K. and Robert De Niro who were in the film only briefly but were great to see. It may not be a re watchable film for me, but it was a fun watch and I’m glad I finally went out to see it.
3.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Laurence Anyways
The_Comatorium
I’m almost at the end of my attempt to see as many films from 2013 as I can before 2014 really gets into gear. I crossed another film off my list when I sat down to watch “Laurence Anyways”, the new film from the young french director, Xavier Dolan. I say he’s young because the kid is only a couple months older than me, which is bitter sweet because he made a gorgeous film and I’m sitting at home on my computer writing about it. Don’t worry, this won’t turn into a self loathing post, but it is to be noted that I believe I am a huge failure.Laurence Anyways is a film about rediscovering the true self and also trying to keep the ones you love close as you go through the process. It’s a gorgeous film. This is really the highlight of the film for me. Colorful slow motion scenes litter the film giving the long run time (nearly three hours) life as we are taken through the ten year relationship between Laurence and Frederique, or Fred for short. Laurence has just decided after two years with Fred, that he was supposed to be born a woman and that he is going to start living the way he naturally feels. Disturbed at first, Fred learns to deal with this transformation, but for how long? I usually don’t go for films of this nature, not because of any ideal issues or bigotry, but rather just an avoidance from the drama that usually accompanies such films. This film however kept my attention the entire time. There were issues but also some very enjoyable features.
I mentioned the visuals already. Each shot was perfectly constructed and meticulously framed. You ideally pause the movie at any time and find a shot worthy of a poster. Dolan is young and incredibly talented. I’m really looking forward to what he does next. The acting was also fantastic with Suzanne Clément really shining in every moment. She was explosive in some scenes while staying subtle and tragic in others. Poupaud had a quieter performance but completely sold that fact that his character was trying to change his body and life. The only thing that I didn’t like about the film was the disjointed narrative towards the end of the film. The first half of the film takes place during the beginning of their relationship with the second half trying to cover nearly eight years. It seemed rushed and forced and didn’t have the same natural flow as the first half of the film did. It ended up ruining what could have been a very very good film. I expect Dolan to learn from this and he is also a very talented writer. Hopefully he learns how to progress the narrative of his characters better because I was very interested in what had happened in the nooks and crannies of those eight years.
Overall the film was very enjoyable. I’m a sucker for the french language so watching this for nearly hours didn’t phase me at all. It’s one of the prettiest films of the year with real moments of passion and emotion delivered by fantastic acting, mainly from Suzanne Clément. It was well worth the watch.
3.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on The Waiting Room
The_Comatorium
I’ve been on a bit of a documentary binge recently. Luckily Netflix has had a great couple weeks recently in which they have made some great documentaries available on Instant Watch, including this one which has only been getting a smallish buzz. I remember watching the hit television show “ER” when I was a kid and being captivated by what takes place in an emergency room. While the show was a wonderful drama, what really happens in an emergency room couldn’t really be further from what happens in the show. Having family members that are routinely going to the hospital for various reasons, I have only just scratched the surface on what it takes to run a successful hospital. Peter Nicks directs a film that tries to show an unbiased light on the health care system in our country.This isn’t a talking heads film. What is essentially being shown is a raw look on a typical night at Highland Hospital located in Oakland, California. The film describes that in a period of 24 hours, the emergency room had a total of 241 patients walk through the doors, most of whom did not have health insurance. The severity of the illnesses and symptoms ranges from serious tumors, throat conditions, gunshots, and chronic pain, but also incorporates people trying to get a little Tylenol. Throughout the entire film, the staff at Highland never rests as they are trying to figure out which patients need attention more than others, where they can put them, and whether or not the hospital is going to be getting paid. That last part is important. Hospitals need money to run efficiently but not everybody can pay the crazy amounts of money that is required to see a doctor for serious conditions. It’s a double edged sword that really nobody is comfortable with but is a reality facing our nation. Canada has free healthcare but the waits are long. America requires insurance to avoid near impossible bills…and the waits are long. Some people interviewed in the film waited hours to be seen. Some of their conditions worsened during the wait. These are the problems facing our country and a film like this is a great way to understand what we are trying to fix.
Political comments aside, the film was very engaging. As I said before, the film is presented in a raw fashion, going from patient to patient and experiencing their diagnosis right along side them. Some patients are angry, some are sad, some just want to go home, and the camera pays them justice by telling the truth on what it is like going to the Hospital when you’re sick. The fact that it’s in such a polarizing area such as Oakland only helps people realize what inner city hospitals are like.
It’s a short watch and loads better than anything you’re likely to find on any network television shows. I hope it gets more attention.
3.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on In a World...
The_Comatorium
I’m a huge voice over nerd. I’ve been watching and enjoying cartoons since I was a kid and at 24 years old, I am probably watch just as much. For the last couple years I’ve been into knowing who does each voice and being the owner of a serviceable voice of my own, have thought about entering the business one day. This is probably the one thing about me that not a lot of people know. I practice impressions in my car and am always goofing around with different voices around friends. I am a nerd. I’m totally aware of this. However, it certainly is a good way to have fun and make a living. For this reason I sought out Lake Bell’s film about the daughter of a voice over legend who is trying to break into the industry as a woman. While I enjoyed some parts of the film, overall it kind of fell a little flat in some areas.Having an interest in the subject of the film, I really did connect with Carol, played as quirky as possible by the films director, Lake Bell. I think that may be the best word to describe the film. Quirky. Most of the time I’m okay with something being overly quirky but when I’m starting to get very bored multiple times during a relatively short film, something just isn’t quite right. It might just be an old fashioned case of not having any likable characters as pretty much everybody was either horrible, stupid, or incredibly awkward. The only person who had me laughing the entire time was the character played by Rob Corddry whose humor stuck out in a film that had very little of it. There were plenty of situations where I thought I should laugh but just really couldn’t find myself genuinely finding the material funny. Comedy films have never really been a huge favorite of mine but I expected more from a cast like this one.
I didn’t hate the film though. Like I said there were definitely some moments that shined through the disappointment and I’d actually like to see what Lake Bell does next. The film was a semi-hit at Sundance so I assume she’ll be back behind the camera again but I’m going to chalk this one as a miss.
2.5/5
www.thoughtsfromthebooth.com
Movie comment on Al midan
The_Comatorium
Right up there with Burma VJ as far as revealing and powerful revolutionary documentaries go. There's a lot of great footage in this and some serious emotion.Showing items 176 – 200 of 364